250 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



HELPS AND HINTS FOR 



YOUNG ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



By Albert H. Waters, B.A. 



Autumn Work. 



Bv the time these lines are in their read- 

 ers hands October will be upon us, and the 

 butterflies and moths which throughout the 

 summer months gladdened the eyes of the 

 entomologist by their beautiful colouring, 

 or excited his emulation by their variety, 

 will have for the most part passed away; 

 and those which survive, although they may 

 flutter about during the few fine days at the 

 beginning of the month, yet towards its 

 close, when the November blasts begin to 

 scatter the few sere and yellow leaves that 

 remain on the sapless trees, they too will 

 disappear. 



The Death's Head Moth (Acherontia 

 atropos) is one of the October lepidoptera. 

 It appears to have been found by fortunate 

 entomologists last month. It can scarcely 

 be wondered at, that it is regarded with 

 much alarm by the ignorant and super- 

 stitious : the portentous figure of a skull 

 and cross-bones which it bears upon its 

 thorax, its large size, and then too, its habit 

 of squeaking out when alarmed, all tend to 

 inspire dread. My readers have most likely 

 seen the amusing account in the Rev. J. G. 

 Wood's Natural History, of the feelings an 

 unlucky "Death's Head" moth once pro- 

 duced in the popular mind — how a congre- 

 gation were coming out of church one Sun- 

 day and walking along in that sober manner 

 which all quiet religious people adopt when 

 leaving a place of worship, as befits the day, 

 when, to their horror, they espied an 

 Atropos quietly making its way across the 

 church-yard path. Had it been the daugh- 

 ter of Nox and Erebus herself, or had the 

 creature come indeed direct from the banks 

 of the Orcusian river, it would scarcely have 

 caused greater consternation. No one dared 



approach the terrible being until the village 

 blacksmith, the stoutest-hearted individual 

 in the community, valiantly flattened it 

 beneath his hob-nailed boots. 



The Oleander hawk moth ( GJicerocampa 

 nerii) comes out in France in October, and 

 specimens now and then, although very 

 rarely, occur in England. I hope some one 

 among the readers of these pages may be so 

 fortunate as to meet with it and have the 

 pleasure of recording its capture in the 

 Young Naturalist. By the way, does any 

 one know whether any of the Entomological 

 or Natural History Societies are taking 

 steps to acclimatise this beautiful moth in 

 England? It is a work such associations 

 might usefully take up. The Silver-striped 

 hawk moth ( G. celerio ) also comes out now 

 on the continent, but British specimens are 

 rare. One was captured at Stratford the 

 end of September of last year and exhibited 

 at the East London Entomological Society. 

 Cerastis erythrocephala is another French 

 insect I, for one, should like to get hold of 

 this side of the Channel. Dasycampa rubi- 

 ginea, with pale yellowish fore wings dotted 

 with black, and a black spot in the place of 

 the lower half of the reniform stigma ; the 

 pale orange Roporina croceago with white 

 hind wings (in size the same as the common 

 A. litura) ; the purplish brown PhlogopTiora 

 empyrea, with conspicuously pale reniform 

 stigma, at the lower end of which is a 

 wedge-shaped mark going towards the base ; 

 and the second brood of the shining grey- 

 brown Spectacle moth (Abrostola urticcz), 

 with large whitish grey apical blotch, are 

 among the other moths occurring in Octo- 

 ber ; and Galocampa vetusta, G. exoleta, 

 Xylina rhizolitha, X. semlbrunnea, X. petri- 

 jicata, and HeliotMs armigera are all still 

 out. 



The geometrina have for the most part 

 disappeared, but, besides one or two common 

 species, the Reddish Ochreous Feathered 

 Thorn (Himera pennaria) and Hybernia 



