THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



79 



the garden. In the middle of January I grubbed them all out and 

 was pleased to find them healthy and in good order. Most of them I 

 put singly into chip boxes as per your recipe, the others into a flower 

 pot with moss. Both lots did well, and I obtained 29 pupae, 25 of 

 which are now out. I am, however, puzzled at the extraordinary 

 preponderance of females, viz. : 20 out of the 25. In price lists these 

 are charged half as much again as males, and I expected that 

 proportion to be maintained. I did not take only the largest larvae, 

 but all I saw. Most of them are very large, but a few are small and 

 dark. I noticed those that spun in the chip boxes made much lighter 

 cocoons than those spun among the moss, though it must have been 

 much darker for them. — L. S. Brady, Sunderland. 



Variation of Erebia blandina. — Mr. Barrett refers in his new 

 work, to the little variation E. blandina is subject to. I have one 

 which seems to vary more than any he describes. In the fore-wings 

 the red band does not extend below the middle, and barely contains 

 the usual two white centered spots. The hind-wings have no red band, 

 but three very small red marks, occupying the position and about the 

 size of the ordinary ocelli, which are entirely absent. — L. S. Brady, 

 Sunderland. 



The Aculeate-Hymenoptera of Britain. — Our readers will be 

 interested to know, that Mr. Edward Saunders, F.L.S., F.E.S., &c, 

 the chief authority in Britain on this group, and author of the 

 ii Synopsis," which has hitherto been the text book on the subject, is 

 writing an important work for Messrs. Lowell, Reeve & Co., on the 

 same lines as Canon Fowler's exhaustive work on British Coleoptera. 

 We are informed that the chief difficulty he has to contend with is the 

 want of reliable records of localities where the various British species 

 occur, and that he is much pleased with, and is making a large use of, 

 the Lancashire and Cheshire list lately published in these pages. 



The Food of Young Spiders. — Young spiders in confinement, even 

 though plentifully supplied with atmospheric food, viz., water, have 

 a strong tendency to cannibalism. But, whether in a wild state, they 

 catch and eat those of their brothers and sisters who are not so fit to 

 survive, I cannot sa}' ; but should think probably not. 



It is w r ell known, of course, that the females of the Lycosida bear 

 their young upon their backs for a considerable time, presumably 

 until they are capable of shifting for themselves. 



I believe I have seen it stated somewhere that the young ones 

 eventually overpower and eat their mother. This would not be at all 

 improbable but will require some amount of confirmation before it 

 becomes an accepted article of my creed. 



