THE ENTOMOLOGIST'S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 181.] SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1860. [Price Id. 
SPHINX PINASTRI. 
At the February Meeting of the Ento- 
mological Society of London the as- 
sembled savaiis were electrified by the 
exhibition of a specimen of Sphinx 
Pinastri, said to have been taken in 
Hampshire. The specimen in question 
was exhibited by Mr. Sealey, who was 
exposed to a rigorous cross-examination 
on the subject. 
Mr. Sealey had not taken the speci- 
men himself, but he had found it in 
the collection of a gentleman who had 
only recently turned his attention to 
Entomology, and who was not aware 
of the value of the capture. 
“ Had that gentleman any foreign in- 
sects in his possession ?” asked Mr. West- 
wood; the answer being in the affirma- 
tive, grave doubts took possession of 
the minds of most of the gentlemen 
present, none <>f whom had ever caught 
a Sphinx Pinastri in this country, and 
therefore could not conceive that any 
one else could have done so. 
A mouth passed away, and again 
the savans were assembled in their 
usual meeting-room. Mr. Sealey being 
absent, the task of defending the 
Pinastri devolved upon his friend Mr. 
Dunning, who read a detailed letter 
from Mr. Morris, the fortunate (or un- 
fortunate) captor. The specimen had 
been taken flying in a fir wood near 
Romsey, about the end of June, at 
10 p. m.; the captor had never placed 
it along with his foreign insects, though 
all were kept in one cabinet; but the 
great weight of the argument in favour 
of its British-ness lay in the pin. 
Mr. Morris’s captures in this country 
were mostly transfixed with gilt pins, 
his few Continental specimens with 
great skewers or stakes; but yet, if 
the pin was not a gilt one, it would 
not prove the specimen to be foreign, 
as some native insects were impaled 
with ordinary stoutish pins. 
Here Mr. Shepherd interrupted the 
reader to state that he had received a 
letter from Mr. Sealey, who informed 
him that he had re-set and re-pinned 
the specimen, and gave a sketch of 
his recollection of what sort of a pin 
the original pin had been! 
A letter was also read from a brother 
of Mr. Morris, who had been travelling 
on the Continent, and, wishing to help 
on his brother's collection a bit , had 
brought home a sample of about a 
dozen specimens from Switzerland ; 
this unfortunate assistance having been 
the cause of all the doubts that had 
arisen as to the authenticity of the 
2 c 
