1668.] 



25 



6cnn'al Information. 



Pi-ices of rare British Lepidoptera. — At the sale by Mr, Stevens of Mr. Chant's 

 Collection, on the 21th April, Sesia asiliformis and S. allanfiformis, against the 

 Britisli origin of which there was not a breath of suspicion, were knocked down, 

 after great competition, at the enormous figure of £5 10s. each (single examples) ; 

 Mr. Henry Evans, of Darley Abbey, Derby, being the purchaser. In the Lists of 

 the Continental dealers asiliformis is marked at prices equivalent to less than 

 sixpence l—allaatiformis seems to be less abundant, and is not priced. 



Movements of British Entomologists.— Frof. Westwood and Mr. Hewitson have 

 returned from a visit to Vesuvius. The mountain was sulky, and would not exhibit 

 its performance before the English savans, although it was too lively after they 

 left. Mr. Pascoe is wandering somewhere about the south of Europe. Mr. 

 Stainton has just left on a six weeks tour, with the intention of visiting Venice and 

 Vienna. 



Departure of a collector to Ecuador and Bolivia. — Mr. Buckley, who has had 

 considerable experience in collecting insects in India, &c., has started for Guyaquil, 

 with the intention of working the interior of Ecaador and Bohvia ; and we doubt 

 not that he will find many interesting things, especially in Uhopalocera. He goes 

 out under the auspices of Mr. Hewitson ; Mr. Higgins is his London agent. 



Death of Charles Turner. — This well-known collector died in King's College 

 Hospital during the last month, from the efiects of a paralytic seizure, over the age 

 of 60. His history was a strange one, and some years since he earned a precarious 

 livelihood by gathering moss for the bird-stuflfers. When engaged in this pursuit he 

 fell in with the late James Foxcroft, who induced him to collect insects ; and 

 latterly his attention was principally directed to wood-boring beetles, in the col- 

 lecting of which he attained great proficiency, and found many species new to the 

 British Lists. One of his captures was described as Zev.gophora Turncri by Dr. 

 Power, but it has been considered as probably only a form of Z. scv.tellaris, Sufil 

 Turner died, as he had always lived, in great poverty. 



Death of Thomas Desvignes, Esq. — We regret to announce the death of Thomas 

 Desvignes, Esq., at his residence at Woodford, in Essex, on the 11th May, aged 56. 

 Some quarter of a century ago Mr. Desvignes was best known for his magnificent 

 series of varieties of Peronea cristana. In those days every fresh variety of that 

 inconstant insect was duly named and described as a new species. Mr. Desvignes 

 inclined, however, to the opinion that certain groups of these varieties might be 

 referred to separate species, and in the Zoologist for 1845, p. 840, he proposed a 

 scheme of grouping, restricting the number of species of the " crested Button " to 

 11; and he even hinted at the possibility of "the whole being but one variable 

 species." 



Of late years his attention had been almost exclusively devoted to the Ichneu- 

 monidoi, and twelve years ago he prepared a Catalogue of the British Ichneuraonid/z 

 in the British Museum, which was printed by order of the Trustees in 1856, and 

 extends to 120 pages 8vo. 



