NATURE NOTES 
198 
a bunch into a tobacco tin without dropping one? If alarmed in the least they 
drop to the ground, and give a lot of trouble at the bottom of a nettle-bed. The 
trick is easily learned, but cannot be done without the aid of a pair of scissors. 
My larva box consisted of a good sized packing-case without a lid, sunk 
bottom upwards three or four inches in the ground. The middle board of what 
was now the top was removed, and one-third of the space used as a door, the 
rest covered with perforated zinc, with another piece at one end close to the 
ground to ensure thorough ventilation. A dozen medicine bottles filled with 
water held the food which was supplied morning and evening, and consisted of 
nettles two feet long. This plan of rearing non-burrowing larvae on the cool dry 
ground answered capitally. The earth neutralised all debris ; no cleaning, beyond 
removing the remains of the last meal, was necessary, and the deaths in ten days’ 
captivity were almost nil. 
As I was leaving home, I had to send my captives off to London, just at the 
critical time when many were beginning to pupate. They arrived, however, quite 
safely, and Mr. Furneaux, in acknowledging their receipt, told me that my 
larva box was a “good idea,” and one to which he thought of giving a trial. 
Market iVeston, Thetford, Edward Thomas Daubeny. 
July, 1901. 
Flies ? — On Friday, August 23, I noticed a peculiar phenomenon which per- 
haps some of your readers can explain to me. 
There was a thick mist early and late, which was only partially dispelled at 
midday by the sun and a gentle breeze from the south west. From the tops 
of several tall trees about half a mile distant there seemed to issue a short thin 
line of dark vapour, which lay horizontal and pennant-like in the direction away 
from the wind. At first sight it looked like the smoke from a chimney. 
Farther on, at the top of a elm tree by the roadside I saw a thick cloud of 
what I took to be flies, and this is possibly an explanation of what I have 
described ; but, if so, why should flies congregate in such numbers in such a 
position? Edmund Hort New. 
Green Hill, Evesham, Aui>Hst, 24, 1901. 
Wasp. — Is it a common coincidence for a blow-fly (bluebottle) to make off 
after an encounter with a wasp? Yesterday I noticed a life-and-death struggle 
between the two insects I have mentioned, and saw the fly stung three times at 
least, after which it got free and flew off. 
September, 1901. A Rugby Selbornian. 
Protective Coloration in a Spider. — On June 29 I picked a spray 
of honeysuckle on Oxshott Common, and noticed that a bumble bee remained in 
one of the flowers. Looking a little more closely, I found that the bee was 
dead, its proboscis extended as if in the act of sucking honey from the long 
corolla-tube, whilst clinging tenaciously to the lower surface of its abdomen was 
a smooth spider, about the size of a pea — not a quarter that of the bee— and 
precisely the colour of the throat of the honey-suckle flower, i.e., a primrose 
yellow. In the August number of The Naturalists' Journal, Mr. E. W. Swanton 
records what is, perhaps, the same species, Misumena vatia (otherwise Thomisus 
citreus, the specific name of which suggests my specimen), on Orchis maculata, 
with brown lines on its sides, which Mr. Frank P. Smith, who knows this species 
on great mullein, heather, roses (yellow and pink), and guelder-rose, pronounces 
to be “merely colour variation.” The Rev. E. N. Bloomfield, Mr. Swanton 
says, is familiar with M. vatia on the ox-eye daisy. G. S. Boulger. 
Abnormal Dandelion. — A dandelion was found in the garden of Linton 
Court, Settle, a few days ago, which had two complete and equally sized flowers 
on one stalk. Each flower is in itself normal and regular ; the stem shows 
indications, externally, of being composed of two tubes, but there is only one 
perforation. ADDISON Crofton. 
Settle, Craven, July 15, 1901. 
Lesser Dodder discovered in Ireland.— As an example of the way 
in which an amateur botanist may add by observation to our knowledge of the 
habitat of a plant, I would lay before your readers the following fact : A lady, 
a friend of mine, living in Dublin and visiting Enniskerry (Co. Wicklow) in 
