THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



63 



and are equally sluggish with the imagines. 

 They are consequently very local, and will 

 swarm at one place.while a dozen yards away 

 there are none. These insects are very diffi- 

 cult to kill by ordinar>' means, and will crawl 

 about for days in the cyanide bottle. The 

 family is called Zygenid.e. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTE ON ENNOMOS AUTUM- 

 NARIA (ALNIARIA.) 



By C. S. Gregson. 

 ■' There i« none no blind m be who will not see," 



On page 342, Young Naturalist, Vol. II., 

 Mr. Tug\vell says he quite endorses my 

 caution, published in No. 98 of Y.N., and 

 continues " but for the genuineness of the 

 36 ova I received from Deal, and from 

 which I have bred this season 32 imagines, 

 I can vouch for them in fullest confidence 

 as being the offspring of a female] moth, 

 taken at light, at Deal, in the Autumn of 

 1879. Mr. Gregson s proverbial courtesy and 

 modesty will hardly permit him to doubt my 

 jealous desire, equally with his own, for 

 striving to uphold the purity of our English 

 collections, W. H. Tugwell. &c." 



Well, now that he has used my caution (?) 

 is he prepared to say he can still hold to 

 the opinions expressed above by himself. 

 It is because I know a little more of the 

 trickery which has been and is still being 

 carried on by obscure people, that I cau- 

 tioned our young friends ; I never supposed 

 Mr. Tugwell would require a caution ; but 

 I fancy even he will by this time have 

 observed how his accounts and his friends 

 historical records fail to dovetail. First, 

 neither of them could differentiate species, 

 one expanding 2^in. and the other rarely 

 reaching more than i^in. in alar expanse, 

 and proportionly broad, and not at all like 



each other in markings, texture, &c. Then 

 the " lar\-a breeding," either Mr. T. was 

 deceiving his friend, or his friends was dodg- 

 ing Mr. T., or it was a jumbled lot of ignor- 

 ance or want of caution to say the least of 

 it ; but from what is known from the writ- 

 ing of one of them, there is no doubt 

 Mr. Tugwell's specimens are bred from 

 foreign eggs, supplied to him by his 

 friend. 



When I wrote my warning to our young 

 friends I had other delinquents in view, 

 Mr. Tug\vell rushed in where these "angels 

 dare not tread," and the result is an inno- 

 cent — but incautious man — appears to have 

 been deceived. Well, he is not the first 

 that has been deceived, nor will he be the 

 last ; and the tricksters think they have 

 escaped, but they have not — there is nothing 

 new in their having placed a few pupa out to 

 be captured by the innocent ! Many years ago 

 I received a note from an acquaintance 

 (the closest fisted collector I ever knew), 

 saying he had taken Ca!. Hera from a lamp 

 in Cheshire, and asking me to come and 

 take another. I went at the time appointed, 

 we discussed the matter fully, and walked 

 past miles of lamps, when we espied one 

 upon almost the last lamp. My companion 

 called out "stop until I get a pin," but there 

 was no stop in me in those days. Up I 

 went, and what was my surprise when I 

 found a pin already in the insect ; and what 

 was his surprise to see me up so quickly and 

 hear me call out "Gosh, dang it, Jemmy, 

 it's pinned on :" and, sure enough, it was 

 pinned between the lamp and the frame. 

 Little tricks have always been tried on, and 

 always will be. All that is wanted to secure 

 the "purity of our collections " is caution. 

 But our young friends may always say it is 

 better to be deceived than to deceive. It is 

 for them I write. Old dogs must look after 

 their own scent, and if they lose it pick 

 it up again, or they will be out of the 

 hunt. 



