1892.] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



17 



measured fifty-four inches across the wings. There appears to be 

 no previous record of the occurrence of this rare bird in Guernsey, 

 though we understand one was shot at Herm about ten years ago. — 

 W. A. Luff, Guernsey. 



BoMBYX RUBi. — I was pleased a week or two ago in getting some 

 larvae of B. nihi to pupate, as I have never bred the species. I put 

 them on the kitchen boiler, and half-a-dozen of them spun up 

 immediately. Two were in such a hurry that they only made one 

 coccoon between them. — L. S. Brady, Mowbray, Sunderland. 9th 

 December, 1891. 



Larv^ of Bryophila Perla in December. -The first week in 

 December I found the larvae of the above species rather common on 

 an old wall which was covered with lichens. They were about 

 quarter of an inch in length, head shining black, slate colour along the 

 back, sides striped with orange extending the whole length of the 

 body. They were very active, crawling rapidly away when 

 disturbed, although the day was very cold. — G. Pullen, Derby. 



Varieties of Agrotis Ashworthii. — Ithink I can safely say that 

 1 am done with Ashworthii now, seeing that the last came out three days 

 ago. I have not got quite so many as I at one time expected to get, but 

 quite enough for my own purposes. Most of the last batch of larva 

 died off when nearly full fed, which was much disappointing. 

 Among the imagines I have reared this Autumn by the forcing process 

 described in the British Naturalist (Vol. i, p, 263), are two distinct 

 departures from the ordinary form. One of these has a well-defined 

 broad black band on the inner margin, which reaches the stigmata and 

 is broken up by them. The portion passing between them reaches the 

 costa ; the other portions shade off to the ground colour before reach- 

 ing so far. Theother variety is very much suffused with darker scales 

 making it almost entirely black or very dark grey, and showing no 

 trace of the usual light ground colour. — L. S. Brady, Sunderland. 



Mr. Brady has sent me carefully executed drawings of these forms. 

 A similar variety to that first described was in Mr. Gregson's 

 collection when I saw it a few years ago, (I am speaking from memory 

 of course). The suffused form is new to me and appears to be very 

 fine.— Ed. B.N. 



Remarks on the Noctua known as Conflua of Treitschke. — 

 From the report of the meeting of the City of London Entomological 

 and Natural History Society, held October 7th, published in Brit. 

 Nat., VL, p. 236, I quote the following, Festiva and conjina were 

 originally confounded by Newman, who figured small, moorland 

 specimens oi f estiva as conflua, but the specimens of conflua from Iceland^ 



