THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



31 



Look ! that man trenching that field is hailing us. " Hi, Master \" we can 

 hear him shout. We go over to him, and as we approach he asks us " Do 

 ye want to buy any grubs ? 99 The " grubs " which he displays in his ex- 

 tended palm are the larvse of Agrotis segetum and exelamationis. We stop a 

 a few minutes to see whether he turns up any more, and before long he dis- 

 inters a fat pronuba caterpillar and a Mamestra brassicce chrysalis. We point 

 to yonder burdock, and ask him if he would mind digging it up for us. He 

 does so and as we anticipated there are two or three of the whitish ochreous 

 larvse of Hepialus humuli, with reddish-brown heads. He tells us he has 

 dug up " lots of them things/' and if we wait a few minutes he will soon 

 turn up some more. We do so and he resumes his trenching, and speedily 

 turns up a whitish caterpillar of the same shape as the kumuli larva, but 

 smaller, and with a yellowish-brown head. This we at once recognise as the 

 caterpillar of the common Swift moth (Hepialus lupulinus.) Boxing the 

 caterpillars, we give the man the price of a pint of beer and resume our walk. 



Here are some old thistle stems — we will split them open and see if they 

 happen to have the rare larvse of Myelois cribrum feeding inside them. If 

 by good fortune we find any we shall see that they are greyish in colour, 

 striped with bluish green and with black heads. But, however, luck is 

 against us. There are several of these internal feeding larvse to be found 

 now. Halonota scutulana is another species living inside thistle stems, and 

 we may find H.fenellana in the stems and roots of mugwort, and Dicroram- 

 phia petiverellana in roots of yarrow ; but it is perhaps advisable to defer 

 collecting till later on. 



But now we leave the road, and going a short distance down a high road 

 strike across a common. Here is a stray teasle head, it will be as well to see 

 whether it contains the green larva of Eupoecilia roseana. We shall no doubt 

 find several other coleoptera about here. We prolong our walk until the sun 

 has got low in the heavens, when we think it about time to turn our face 

 homewards. As the dusk of evening comes on we see Hybernia rupicapraria 

 flying about the hawthorn hedges, while in the neighbourhood of the oak 

 tree whereon we found Phigalia pilosaria we see Hybemia leucophearia and 

 ff. progemmaria. 



The above account is a fair sample of the work which an entomologist may 

 do in February. In addition to the species I have mentioned, the lepidopter- 

 ist may, if he visits heathy places, meet with Cheimatopkila mixtana. The 

 forewings of this tortrix are silvery grey, streaked with chocolate brown, and 

 the edge of the costa is reddish. 

 Cambridge. 



