THE SUBSTITUTE. 
ro? 
Why, that I had been over to 
Eraiice for them : yet who will 
say so now? If parties who have 
been deceived will publish the 
names of the persons who have 
deceived them, it would put others 
on their guard, and the thing 
would be, in a great measure, put 
a stop to.— H. J. Haedtxg, 1, 
York Street, Church Street, Shore- 
ditch ; January 3, 1857. 
Melitcea Cinxia. — Your face- 
tious Wick correspondent, who so 
obligingly undertakes the defence 
of insects generally, and Lepidop- 
tora in particular, and who con- 
stitutes himself reporter of the 
Transactions of the “ M etropolitan 
Bombyx Society,” seems to have 
some confusion in his mind with 
regard to the time of appearance of 
Melitwa Cntxza, which I hope, with 
the assistance of the ‘ Manual,’ to 
be able to clear up for him. If 
he will take the trouble to refer to 
page 46 of the work just men- 
tioned, (or, if he prefers, to the 
‘Zoologist’ for 1846, page 1271,) 
he will find there the following 
observations by Mr. Dawson. 
“ The earliest date on which I 
have met with it is May 1st; the 
latest in July; but in the latter 
case the specimens were bred in 
captivity. I never remember to 
have seen it so late in the state of 
liberty ; not later, indeed, than 
the middle of June here.” (Speak- 
ing of Sandown in the Isle of 
Wight.) On reading these re- 
marks, and comparing them with 
my own experience when in the 
island, I must say it rather asto- 
nished me to hear that while “I 
was rolling in the clover,” any 
collector, however assiduous, could 
have captured and pinned “600 
Cinxia," seeing that the operation 
just alluded to took me about 
three minutes to perform, and also 
that the latest period of Cinxia’s 
appearance at liberty was the 
“ middle of June,” while all that I 
have related in the ‘Substitute’ 
took plaee on the 31st of July. I 
also wonder where the “ 500 
Cinxia" hid themselves from me, 
or whether only showed them- 
selves to the devouring collector 
mentioned by your correspondent ; 
for I must say that, although very 
frequently at Sandown and its 
vicinity, far from seeing anything 
like “ 500 Cinxia,” I never beheld 
a single specimen, at which I was 
not surprised, for I expected none 
so late in the season. — Roland 
Trimen, 71, Guildford Street, 
Russell Square ; January 7, 1857. 
Acherontia Atropos. — The fol- 
lowing extract from ‘The Journal 
of a Naturalist,’ third edition, p. 
325, may not be uninteresting. 
“ Their changes are very uncer- 
tain. I have had the larva change 
to a chrysalis in July, and pro- 
duce the moth in October, but 
generally the aurelia remains un- 
changed till the ensuing summer.’’ 
— S. Bingham, Newnham; Janu- 
ary 5, 1 857. 
Rearing of Acherontia Atropos 
and Deilephila Galii — As the 
question of the duration oi Atropos 
in pupa has lately been discussed, 
the following account may not be 
uninteresting. In this district 
Atropos was abundant last year. 
I had fifty, and I know’ of at least 
twenty others being taken. As I 
wanted specimens for my cabinet 
I procured all I could, and suc- 
ceeded in obtaining the most of 
those dug up in the potato fields. 
Ultimately I had fifty chrysalides, 
and two of D. Galii, of which the 
