3i6 



Field Notes. 



'Sometimes occurs abundantly near Carlisle,' by the late T. C. 

 Heysham ; Stephen's ' Manual,' p. 6i ; Curtis' ' British Ento- 

 mologfy ' ; Dawson's 'Col. Britannica/ p. 53. — George B. 

 RouTLEDGE, F. E.S., Carlisle, 5th September 1904. 



Lampyris noctiluca L. in Cheshire. — The Glow-worm is 

 only a local insect in this county. Old Knutsford residents tell 

 me that in the middle of the last century it occurred in a damp 

 place by the side of the road which skirts Tabley Park, but it is 

 not there now. In the summer of 1903 it was very plentiful in 

 one part of Knutsford Moor, and I found it more sparingly on 

 the railway embankment near Bramhall Station. This year it 

 is reported from Marple, an old locality (c.f. Melvill, ' British 

 Association Handbook,' 1887). On 14th July I collected 

 a number of the beetles — larvae and mature males and females 

 — on Knutsford Moor. In one cases four males were competing- 

 for the favours of one brilliantly-g-lowing- female, crawling- over 

 her body. On reaching- home I put the insects— forty or fifty in 

 all — on a tray, and ag'ain noticed the competition among the 

 males. In several instances three or four males swarmed over 

 the body of a female, even after one of their number had 

 copulated. — Chas. Oldham, Knutsford, 25th August 1904. 



Geoirupes typhosus in the Lake District. — It is interesting 

 to find from Mr. Oldham's note ('The Naturalist,' September, 

 p. 284) that Geotrupes typhoeus is present on the south-western 

 side of our mountains, as well as in the centre. Here in Rydal 

 it bores in a layer of stiff" yellow soil, intermixed with stones, 

 that thinly covers the slate rock of Loughrigg on its lower 

 slopes, a little above the lake — a deposit possibly of the glacial 

 period. The little yellow heaps are so conspicuous in mid- 

 winter time on the green of the fell-grass and moss, that it is 

 impossible not to speculate on the life-history of the little 

 creature within the burrow, that can heave and turn out stones 

 larger than itself. In January and February the heaps are 

 abundant; my calendar even shows the 21st November as a date 

 when I once found three of them. But the inhabitant is not easily 

 seen. The tunnel is some inches in depth, and deflected, no 

 doubt to keep the rain out. I once dug the beetle out — a perfect, 

 horned male — on 6th March, and I have met with it walking 

 laboriously abroad, as early as 17th February. But from the 

 fewness of our encounters, I have wondered if its habits were 

 nocturnal, in which case the presence of the Nightjar on this fell- 

 side would be accounted for. — Mary L. Armitt. 



Naturalist, 



