A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



No. 155. OCTOBER 28th, 1882. Vol. 3. 



THE PAST SEASON. 



AT the close of the volume and of 

 the season it seems appropriate 

 to look back once more and consider 

 what has been done during the year. 

 Insects all over appear to have been 

 particularly scarce. Except in a few 

 places, sugar was quite unproductive 

 in the spring and summer. One cor- 

 respondent tells us that after sugaring 

 three times without obtaining an insect 

 he gave it up altogether ; others per- 

 severed longer than this, only to arrive 

 at the same result in the end. But 

 when August was over moths began 

 to seek the sugared trees, and nearly 

 every correspondent writes of his 

 greater success in autumn. Still, we 

 have heard of very little being taken 

 that is really rare, nor do the other 

 magazines record much of consequence. 

 In September of last year we called 

 attention to the meteorological aspects 

 of 1881. We said "After a very open 

 winter, severe weather set in about 

 Christmas and continued almost until 

 May. Then we had a summer of 

 almost tropical heat ^ but 

 St. Swithin brought rain; and when 



the forty days were over, instead of 

 the sky clearing and the sun shining 

 out again, heavier rains set in ^ ^ 

 and still the rains continue." We 

 then asked what effect this would have 

 on insect life. We call attention to 

 this now to ask the question, has the 

 dearth of insects in the early part of 

 the year been owing to the unfavour- 

 able autumn of 1881 ? It would 

 almost seem so, yet the dearth of 

 records of captures prevent a conclu- 

 sion being arrived at with any degree 

 of certainty. Insects pass the winter 

 in one of the four states, and it would 

 be interesting to know whether those 

 wintering as ova, larvse, pup^, or 

 imagines suffered most by the rains of 

 last August and September. Corres- 

 pondents, as we have already said, 

 speak of greater success with autumn 

 insects than with those appearing 

 earlier, as though the species that 

 emerged last year after the worst of 

 the floods were over had thus escaped 

 the disastrous effects that were experi- 

 enced by the broods from those 

 emerging earlier. To us it seems a 

 pity that, wliile the information that 



