6462 



Insecis. 



in the town, and allowed my brother, who discovered it, to approach quite close : this 

 is the second met with here this season, my father having seen another in September, 

 on the wing. — H. W. Battersby. 



Food-plant of the Genus Acronycta. — In the ' Zoologist' (Zool. 6382), I find the 

 Kev. H. Harpur Crewe donbts the larva of A. Ligustri feeding npon privet ; but that 

 it does so, the following fads will prove. While collecting in the lane that leads from 

 Greenhithe to Darenth Wood, a few years since, I found a long slender green looper 

 on privet, which spun up on the 25th of August, and on the 22nd of September pro- 

 duced a fine female of A. fuscantaria. As this larva was new to me, I endeavoured to 

 procure others, and in beating along the hedge I obtained from privet several fat green 

 larvae, slightly hairy, the hair hardly perceptible, unless held against the light; these 

 produced A. Ligustri the^following May and June. I have also frequently beaten them 

 from ash, but as this food dries up very soon when put into the breeding-cage, I inva- 

 riably give them privet, upon which they thrire equally well. In September last, I 

 obtained the beautiful larva of A. tridens, respectively from sallow, birch and oak. — 

 William Machin ; 35, William Street, Globe Fields, Mile End, London, January 

 5, 1859. 



Food-plant of Acronycta Ligustri. — I hasten to acknowledge myself in error, 

 in doubting (Zool. 6382) whether the larva of A. Ligustri ever fed upon privet. Mr. 

 Doubleday kindly informs me that he has for years past been in the habit of taking it 

 upon a privet-hedge iu his garden. — H. Harpur Crewe ; Drinkstone, Woolpit, Suffolk, 

 February 7, 1859. 



Note on Tephrosia crepuscularia and T. laricaria. — It is a very odd thing that if 

 these two insects be, as Mr. Gregson supposes, the same species, they should so regu- 

 larly occur at different periods of the year. Neither species is very uncommon in some 

 parts of Hampshire, and when staying with my friend, Mr. Hawker, I have had 

 some opportunity of becoming acquainted with their habits. Tephrosia laricaria 

 begins to appear in March, and continues through the greater part of April. We 

 never saw a specimen of T. crepuscularia before the beginning of May, when not a 

 single T. laricaria was to be seen. I am well acquainted with the larva of T. crepus- 

 cularia, having both taken it on sallow and aspen, and reared it from the egg. 

 I have tried, but could nut succeed in getting the females of T. laricaria to lay 

 eggs. Breeding both species from the egg is of course the only way to settle 

 the question satisfactorily, and this I am happy to know is likely to take place during 

 the present season. The exhibition of a long series of varieties of either insect 

 amounts to nothing. Mr. Gregson might just as well take a long row of Acronycta 

 Psi and A. tridens, and, because the members of the Northern Entomological Society 

 could not distinguish one species from the other, endeavour to prove them identical. 

 —Id. 



Observations on the Solenobite of Lancashire, fyc. — Herewith I send, for your ex- 

 amination, six bred male specimens of Solenobia inconspicuella and a card with 

 females and cases, also seven males of my S. triquetrella (partly bred) and three 

 females and cases. I think, if you will refer to Bruand's work, you will satisfy your- 

 self that these are really identical with the species he describes as S. triquetrella : it is 

 impossible to make anything out of the plates representing the males of S. inconspicu- 

 ella and S. triquetrella. The cases of S. inconspicuella are found here on beech trees 

 in Prestwieh Wood, and the moths appear early in April, and are most sluggish crea- 

 tures. The cases of S. triquetrella are found on large millstone-grit stones on 



