6382 



Insects, 



botanical knowledge ; for the Erodium is found in plenty on the banks of the canal at 

 Norwood, but no Helianthemum : thus Mr. Morris proves that L. Agestis is found 

 where its food-plant grows in abundance. Helianthemum, as I have stated before, 

 will only grow on chalk or limestone, while the Erodium grows in open places, where 

 there are grassy slopes, such as run all through the Surrey hills ; on the high mountain 

 ridges the Erodium is rare, but in those places the Helianthemum grows in abun- 

 dance ; in such localities L. Agestis is rare. I am much obliged to Mr. Morris for 

 calling my attention to the Surrey hills, and more particularly to the canal at Nor- 

 wood, as it proves all that I wish. If Mr. Morris can spare a few days next summer 

 I hope he will search well the Helianthemum for the larva of L. Agestis, for I can 

 assure him it will be a discovery when he finds one; it does not follow that because 

 Mr. Morris finds L. Agestis where the Helianthemum is found that it must be its 

 food-plant. — H. J. Harding; I, York Street, Church Street, Shoreditch, January 5, 

 1859. 



[This discussion must now terminate for the present, to be renewed at some future 

 time, when Mr. Doubleday, Mr. Logan, Mr. Harpur Crewe, or some other close 

 observer of larvae, shall actually breed Lycaeua Agestis from the larva. — Edward 

 Neivman.~\ 



Food-plant of Sphinx Convolvuli. — I was extremely glad to read Mr. Douglas's 

 paper on Sphinx Convolvuli (Zool. 6337). I believe the larva rarely or ever feeds 

 upon anything but the greater or lesser bindweed (Convolvulus Sepium and C. ar- 

 vensis, L.), and the perfect insect is thence most properly named Sphinx Convolvuli. 

 I know an entomologist in Kent who has several times bred the perfect insect iu April 

 and May, from larvae taken the previous autumn upon C. Sepium. A cousin of mine 

 has now in his possession a very lively pupa, the larva of which was taken last 

 September, at Eastbourne. — H. Harpur Crewe ; Drinkstone, Woolpit, Suffolk, 

 January 14, 1859. 



[I wish that any gentleman who finds either the larva or pupa of this insect 

 would oblige us all by transmitting a minute description of them to the 4 Zoologist.' — 

 Edward Newman.'] 



Food-plant of the Genus Acronycta. — I have read with much interest Mr. Gregson's 

 remarks (Zool. 6338), under the above heading. I am able to add three more food- 

 plants to those he enumerates for Acronycta Alni, viz. beech, sallow and black Italian 

 poplar. I have three times had the larva, and respectively from the above-mentioned 

 trees. My brother, a few years since, brought me a fine pupa, the larva of which he 

 found and fed up upon alder, and my friend Mr. Herbert Bree beat a full-fed speci- 

 men from oak the year before last. Mr. Gregson remarks that he never saw A. Ru- 

 micis on its titular plant: this is certainly not the case in Derbyshire, where I have 

 seen the larvae feeding upon all the common species of Rumex, and in profusion upon 

 the common sorrel (Rumex acetosa) : this species, at any rate, is not, I think, mis- 

 named. I am, howev er, entirely at a loss to conceive how A. Ligustri came by its 

 title ; I have taken the larvae in some plenty on ash, but never, except in one instance, 

 upon anything else; this exception was at Malvern, where I once beat two small 

 larvae from hazel, fed one of them up upon that tree, and bred the moth ; I do not 

 believe it ever feeds, or did feed, upon privet, but I may be mistaken. The favourite 

 food-plant of A. Aceris is certainly sycamore; upon this tree the larvae used to occur 

 in some plenty, when I was at Trinity, in the environs of Cambridge: during my 

 residence in Suffolk, however, I have myself beaten it from maple and oak, and seen 



