62 



THE YOUNG NATUKALlST. 



rustic caterpillar (Lupulina testacea), on grass; the purplish brown or reddish 

 drab Caradria alsines " (Uncertain moth)," on chiekweed, and the pale 

 reddish grey larva of the smoky Wainscot Moth (Leucania impura), which 

 feeds on grass. 



Some of the spring flowers will now be blooming, unless the weather 

 should prove very severe. Among those which blossom in March are ground 

 ivy, dead nettles, coltsfoot, celandine, dandelion, daisy, hearts ease, mallow, 

 periwinkle, primrose, violet, and if the weather be mild daffodils, cowslips, 

 wild strawberry, megareon, dog mercury, and wood anemone. 

 Cambridge. 



NEWSPAPER ENTOMOLOGY. 



F. N. PIERCE. 



When will newspaper editors learn sufficient entomology to exclude such 



gross errors as the following, which appeared in one of our local papers : — 



A BUTTERFLY IN JANUARY. 



Mr. R. D. Hulme, of Queen's Park, Manchester, writes: — " On Thursday 

 evening, the 12th inst., at 7.45, I was surprised to see flying about the room a 

 beautiful full-grown butterfly. I caught it and put it into a glass with some 

 crushed sugar. The following morning (the 13th) I looked at the little visitor 

 and found it quite lively. Is this not a very surprising and strange visit at 

 this time of the year, especially with such weather as we have had during the 

 last few days ? " 



Nor are editors entirely to blame for the notice, there is so much they are 

 expected to know, and it might have got in accidently. But is there any 

 excuse for a gentlemen, presumably of fair education, rushing into print to 

 expose his barbarous ignorance on entomology. Forsooth ! the gentleman 

 imagines that the small Clothes moth feeds rapidly on his woollen garments, 

 until it attains the size of an ordinary noctua, when it will leave the animal 

 and turn its attention to the vegetable kingdom, that here the noctua or 

 " Buzzard/' feeds for some time in order that in may become a full-grown 

 butterfly, and sport on the gentleman's cabbage as a Garden W T hite, or feed 

 on the crushed sugar so generously placed at its disposal. After this, no 

 doubt, our excellent friend has a hazy idea that some how or other the Gar- 

 den White, by some curious transformation, becomes a caterpillar, when it 

 will proceed to lay eggs for future generations. This is not supposition only 

 — I have met many who hold these curious ideas of the transformation of 

 of lepidoptera. 



Smithdown Lane, Liverpool, 



