6090 



Insects. 



describing the British moths and their caterpillars for the monthly numbers of * Young 

 England,' I consider it most desirable to make the descriptions directly from speci- 

 mens, without any reference whatever to prior descriptions. The rich collection of 

 moths in the cabinet of the Entomological Club affords me the means of describing 

 with the most painstaking accuracy all the perfect iusects ; and the equally rich col- 

 lection in the British Museum, always accessible for such an object, is the source to 

 which my friend Mr. Willis has gone for his admirable figures of each species. But 

 it is not equally easy to obtain the characters of larva?. Those published in this 

 country, T regret to say, are often most inaccurate, a fact arising from their being copied 

 (avowedly) from continental writers, and these continental writers not having suffi- 

 ciently respected the law of priority: thus we find that the names employed by 

 Guenee and Doubleday, and now universally adopted in this country, continually 

 differ from those of Duponchel, Hiibner, Freyer, &c. ; and the descriptions, however 

 accurate as applied by these authors, become useless if transferred to other spe- 

 cies now bearing the very same names. Under these circumstances the readers of 

 the 'Zoologist' cannot render a greater service to entomological science than by 

 sending me minute descriptions of all the larvae that fall in their way ; or, should they 

 consider this too troublesome, I shall be obliged for the larvae themselves, from which 

 to make my own descriptions. As a guide to what are more immediately wanted, I 

 may state that the September number will contain the genera Trichiura, Pcecilocampa, 

 Eriogaster and Bombyx ; the October number, Odonestis, Lasiocampa, Endromis 

 and Saturnia; the November number commences the GeometraB. I wish most dis- 

 tinctly to state that I have no interest whatever in the sale of 'Young England ;' but 

 I do most sincerely desire to make my contributions to it as accurate as possible, with 

 the sole view of conferring real utility on a work that has already attained a circula- 

 tion which I believe to be fully tenfold that of any entomological writings ever 

 before printed. I shall, with scrupulous exactness, give every contributor either of 

 larvae or descriptions full credit for his assistance. — Edward Neivman. 



Notes on Wasps. — I was much pleased with Dr. Ormerod's paper (Zool. 6641). 

 It is there shown that wasps (or even hornets) are not the very irascible insects most 

 people suppose. Apart from their nests and young they never act offensively ; and I 

 have noticed, many years ago, that when wasps are in a predatory mood they are always 

 great cowards, and never attack any one. The whole of the Hymenoptera with stings 

 are the same. Walk into a field of Dutch clover (Trifolium repens), with fully-deve- 

 loped blossoms, where tens of thousands of bees of all sorts are congregated : they 

 make a great buzz, aud appear angry at being disturbed at their pasture; but not one 

 will ever attack an iutruder. But to return to wasps, I do not remember a season 

 in Gloucestershire with so few wasps as up to this day (August 3) ; the queens 

 were numerous about the end of April and beginning of May, and I killed a great 

 many ; perhaps the cold easterly winds destroyed most of them. Last year they were 

 so numerous as to be troublesome, but plums and wall fruit were in abundance : this 

 year pears, plums and peaches, the principal food of wasps, are few and far between ; 

 and the same cold winds and ungenial weather seem to have destroyed both the wasps 

 and their food. I am of opinion that the three most common British wasps begin 

 with a single queen. — H. W. Nextman ; Cheltenham, August 3, 1859. 



