410 Proceedings of the 



the natural habits of the species, on the northern and eastern 

 sides of the Highland mountains, and doubtless in boggy 

 spots, where many of the mountain saxifrages grow. The 

 eggs hatched on the 26th of August, and about one-half of 

 the brood fed rapidly, and changed to pupse early in October, 

 the moths appearing from the 7th to the 20th of November ; 

 while the rest of the brood are still quite small, and have 

 passed the winter among the saxifrages in the cylinder. A 

 few of those which came to perfection deposited eggs ; but 

 these have not hatched, and I suspect will not prove fertile. 



About the middle of July I received eggs of Dosithea im- 

 mutata from the neighbourhood of Ardrossan, through the 

 kindness of Dr Colquhoun, and also an active brown Tortrix 

 larva, which he had found in the earth upon some rocks in 

 the vicinity, and which fed, after I received it, upon grass. I 

 at once suspected, from its size and appearance, coupled with 

 the locality from which it had come, that it was the unknown 

 larva of Sciaphila bellana ; and accordingly, after the lapse 

 of some weeks, a crippled and imperfect, but undoubted speci- 

 men, of Sciaphila bellana, var. Colquhounana, made its ap- 

 pearance, thus affording a clue to the habits of the species by 

 which its transformations may be satisfactorily worked out 

 another season. The Dosithea larvse fed on Lotus cornicu- 

 latus ; but I did not succeed in keeping them through the wet 

 weather in the autumn, moisture being as inimical to them as 

 it was favourable to the larvae of the Aplocera before men- 

 tioned. Of another species of the same family, however, Aci- 

 dalia fumata, which frequents naturally damper and lower 

 lying situations, I have preserved a few larvae so far through 

 the winter, though whether I shall rear them or not, remains 

 yet to be seen. 



2. Coleoptera. 



Giving priority to the most interesting, a couple of speci- 

 mens of the rare Calathus nubigena, Halliday, one J and 

 one <j>, have been taken on the Pentland Hills, — the first in 

 May, on a level moor about 850 feet above sea- level ; the 

 second late in September, near the top of one of the hills* 

 fully 1400 feet in height. Previous to these captures, the 



