6338 



Insects. 



he has likened to the sound produced by the sparks of an electrical machine. Has he 

 not mistaken it for the sound produced by other larvae feeding in his breeding-cage? 

 for I have this season raised sixteen specimens of A. Alropos, and have often heard 

 the souud so well described by Mr. Weatherhead, but always attributed it to the 

 other larvae in the same breeding-cage biting their food (Carduus angustifolia), the 

 leaves of which are hard and scabrous. The larvae of A. Atropos are very common 

 about Poona. — Julian Hobson, Lieut. 3rd Regt. Bombay N. I. ; Poona, near Bombay , 

 October 14, 1858. 



Specific Names : Food of the Genus Acronycta. — Sergeant Johnson brought me a 

 full-grown larva of Acronycta Alni for identification on the 24th of August: it was 

 beaten from a horse-chestnut tree, on which it fed freely. Mr. Cook, in the 1 Intelli- 

 gencer,' writes that he fed it upon alder ; Mr. Brown, in the ' Naturalist,' that he found 

 it on willow ; Mr. Anderson fed it upon lime ; I have fed it upon thorn, which it pre- 

 ferred to all other food offered: Mr. Greening also fed it upon thorn: a friend here 

 fed it upon sycamore, and I have known it successfully bred upon bramble. What, 

 then, is its food-plant? It appears to me that many species of this genus are queerly 

 named : A. Alni, a general feeder, is called after one plant ; A. Menyanthidis, which 

 undoubtedly feeds belter upon sallow and whitethorn than upon anything else, after 

 a plant I never knew it eat; A. Salicis, which is a variety of A. Menyanthidis, I pos- 

 sess bred from thorn by Mr. Hague ; A. Ruinicis will eat anything, but I never saw 

 its larvae on its titular plant; A. Ligustri I have bred upon ash, &c. ; and A. Myrica 

 is a sallow-feeder: thus, of all the plant-named species in this genera, except A. Aceris 

 (which I know nothing about), we see they do not feed upon the plants they are named 

 after; and of A. megacephala, a poplar-feeder (about which I see little to call in 

 Greek on its head), and A.auricoma (not particularly yellow-haired, unless we take its 

 name from its larva) fiuishes the genus, except A. strigosa, about which I know 

 nothing whatever, except by hearsay. How our ' Gradus ' friends are to get through 

 this little dilemma remains to be seen, but it strikes me that to stumble upon many 

 such rocks as these will spoil their " little game," because it is to be hoped they will 

 not perpetuate errors by telling us that " A. Alni is called after its food-plant" (which 

 it certainly is not), and so on of the others. In common with many other practical 

 men, I am anxious to see a specimen of the 'Gradus' before we subscribe for it; if, 

 as has been recently hinted, it is only to be " An Accentuated List," it will not be 

 worth the paper it is printed upon to a scholar, and of no earthly use to those who are 

 not scholars, and the mass of entomologists are not scholars ; still they wish to know 

 what certain names mean, but will for ever pronounce them in the dialect of their 

 district, however it may jar upon Scotch or English ears. All the fine points of 

 accentuation will go for nothing without a full explanation of how they apply, because, 

 as I have said before, those who are not scholars, in the full acceptation of the term, 

 cannot apply the points, and those who are scholars do not require it to be done for 

 them. Of the two species in the genus Semaphora (S. tridens and S. Psi), and one in 

 Apatela (A. leporina), the two first are general feeders, but prefer osier and long-coned 

 or Winchester willow, whilst A. leporina is confined to birch, on which it is a canary- 

 coloured larva, and to black or trembling poplar, on which its larva is white, with a 

 slight, light green tinge, generally producing the variety bradyporina. — C.S. Gregson; 

 Fletcher Grove, Stanley, near Liverpool. 



Note on the Habits of Ileliolhis marginata. — As I last year took a hundred, or 

 somewhat more, of the larvae of Heliothis marginata, I can form a tolerably good idea 



