2I6 



The Irish Natvralisi. 



December 



ZOOLOGY. 

 Notes on Lepidoptera. 



In August Hydraecia nictitans and H. tnicacea came to light, flying 

 into the house to the lamp light. The latter also occurred in October, 

 a very fine female specimen, almost equal in size to the remarkable 

 specimen which Mrs. Johnson took on the road between this house and 

 Poyntzpass {E^tt. Mo. Mag. 1903). 



I spent September at Coolmorc, Co. Donegal, and saw Pyrameis cardtti 

 and Vanessa io on the wing there ; both species were fine fresh specimens. 

 Mrs. Johnson also saw P. atalanta. I was surprised and disappointed 

 not to meet with any of these butterflies here this autumn. Why it 

 should be so I cannot conjecture. October was a very fine month, and 

 I have frequently seen P. atalanta here during it. 



I met with some larvae at Coolmore, prominent among them being 

 those of the Buff -tip Moth {Phalera bucephaia) which had in some cases 

 stripped large portions of the sallow bushes on which they were feeding 

 entirely of foliage. Besides these the larvae of the Fox Moth {Lasiocampa 

 rubi) were common, but I did not trouble to take any of them, having 

 found that they have a rooted antipathy to be reared in captivity. I 

 also met with larvae of A crony eta psi, A. rumicis and Notodonta ziczac. 



In October I took two beautiful dark specimens of Cidaria psittacata 

 in my house here. They had probably flown in from the ivy outside. 



Miss May Alexander, of Acton House, sent me a full grown larva of 

 the Peppered Moth, Amphidasys {Pachys) bettilaria, which she found 

 feeding on rose leaves at Caledon, Co. Tyrone. It has pupated, and I 

 hope to have a nice specimen in the spring. The curious thing was that 

 just before this my friend, Mr. N. H. Foster, M.R.I. A., sent me a description 

 of a larva which was feeding on broom in a nursery garden at Hillsborough, 

 Co. Down. I was unable to recognise it from the description at first, 

 but when I got Miss Alexander's capture I was able to decide that Mr. 

 Foster's larva was the same. 



W. F. Johnson. 



Poyntzpass. 



Pantilus tunicatus at Warrenpoint. 



On October the 12th I was at Warrenpoint, and as it was a very fine 

 sunny day I was sitting out on the lawn at my friend, Mr. Connor's, 

 residence, and looking over the day's newspaper, as well as enjoying 

 the sunshine and the beauty of Carlingford Lough. While thus pleasantly 

 engaged an insect alighted on the newspaper, and I was roused to action 

 and forthwith transferred it to a bottle. The next day I inspected my 

 capture and found it to be Pantilus tunicatus Fab. a Hemipteron which 

 Mr. Saunders in his work on the British Hemiptera-Heteroptera states 

 to have been recorded by Haliday from Ireland, but of which I cannot 



