52 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
Smoke attractive to Moths. — I took 
Cidaria latentaria, a species I was in 
want of, last June, in a remarkable man- 
ner. I joined a fishing expedition to the 
Tweed: one evening our party of four, 
after whipping the waters of Loch Skene, 
sat down on the mountain side, and, as is 
usual with anglers, were regaling on the 
fragrant weed. Four pipes of course pro- 
duced a considerable quantity of smoke, 
and very soon I perceived Latentaria and 
Miaria evidently approved of our pro- 
ceedings. We had a succession of visitors: 
they evidently snuffed up the fragrance 
from a distance, and flew close up to the 
bowls of the pipes. I cannot say for cer- 
tain the description of tobacco we were 
using, but it may possibly have been 
Honey-dew ! — F. K. 
Two Days at the Digyings.— On Tues- 
day, October 27, the weather was plea- 
santly varied by a succession of hurricanes 
and water-spouts; and in the midst of 
one of the latter phenomena the drenched 
postman brought me an invitation to 
“ come and grub under the fine old trees” 
of a kind friend in the valley of Taunton 
Deane, and to “ accept grub and shelter” 
in his hospitable mansion afterwards On 
receipt of this missive I at first looked 
despairingly at the weather, then, retiring 
to my study, screwed the mercury in the 
barometer up to “set fair,” and confi- 
dently accepted the invitation. The 
sequel is instructive, — at 5 p.sr. the sky 
cleared, the sun set in crimson, and a 
vigorous wind dried the sodden ground : 
accordingly early on the following morn- 
ing the first train bore us through that 
species of “ morning grey,” of pastoral 
notoriety, to the scene of our coming 
glory. A noble oak, with autumn-tinted 
foliage, and, which was more to our pur- 
pose, with wide-spreading roots, first 
attracted our attention: just where two 
buttresses of living wood formed an angle 
we espied a small tuft of grass; this we 
judged would prove a “ Placcro : ” a three* 
pronged fork raised the sheltering tuft, 
and, on gently tapping it with a trowel* 
one — two — three — eight glossy, and 
therefore new, pupae rolled at our knees, — 
for, reader, knees and ungloved hands are 
essential at the “ diggings : ” a further 
search disclosed a huge “ nugget” of the 
purest ore, viz. P. trepida, and also a 
second, whose shrivelled and cracking 
case exposed the elliptical and banded 
form of an Ichneumon pupa: we have 
thrown such things away, but we are 
wiser now, and all were consigned to our 
pupa-boxes. A knobby knot on the 
gnarled surface of the tree took my fancy ; 
one blow' with the trowel, and out rolled 
from his warm Qocoon A. Meyacephala , 
and writhed in mild caudal convulsions 
at my feet; to cut out the cocoon and re- 
place him in it was a moment’s work, but 
he had a box for himself. Our next tree 
was an elm — a veritable Sacramento, only 
not so wet ; here were no “ nuggets,” but 
fine “ grains,” such as T. munda and T. 
Opima, mixed largely with the impurer 
ore, T. Stabilis and Gothica. After we 
had sunk our pits and cleared the sub- 
strata of their contents, we filled in our 
excavations (remember this, reader, if you 
would revisit the scenes of your failures 
and successes), and made tracks for a 
large ash, whose riven bark invited 
search ; we ripped away at it till it re- 
sembled an Australian Eucalyptus, in the 
fall of the bark, but nothing rewarded our 
exertions save clumps of congregated 
Oniscidro and bqgs of spiders, varied 
by an occasional Scolopendra or lulus. 
Suddenly I saw a deep hole in the wood, 
and in went my penknife as a probe, — 
“ Soft, by J ove ! ” — and we cut him out — 
a fine Cossus in a huge cocoon. Then 
we took to scoring the bottom of the tree 
in the most orthodox fashion, much like 
etching an engraving, but without re- 
sult; however, the same expedient ap- 
plied to a poplar overhanging a small 
stream discovered some desperately hard 
cocoons of Pureula and. liifida. This 
was exciting work, but many an apparent 
