66 
THE entomologist’s RECORD. 
One spun his silly self to the gauze of the bag in which I had sleeved 
them for the winter, a course of action which I knew to be dangerous 
and meant to prevent, but he did it in the night, and an earwig was up 
earlier than I, and ate him or sucked him through the gauze. I expect 
one reason why larvae sleeved out for the winter have done so well is 
that the frost kept off the earwigs and woodlice, who burrow into 
anything and have the most marvellous trick of finding out where one’s 
sleeves are. I always inspect mine every morning through the autumn. 
I expect one ought to doctor the stem of the branch below to keep these 
visitors off. — G. M. A. Hew?:tt. March 26^h, 1891. 
Noctua sobrina. — I begin to take the larvae about the end of April, 
they are very small at that time. I do not know whether the larvae 
hybernate or if the ova lie over all the winter. I am inclined to think 
it is the latter (I may be wrong), because, had they hybernated, the 
larvae must, I think, have been much larger. Last year, about the end 
of April, I began to sweep for them, when I took some that seemed 
newly hatched, while a few others were in their first moult. I swept 
once or twice every week from that time until about the first week in June, 
when they begin to get rather scarce, but the last night I went out, 
Saturday, June 7th, I took four larvae full fed. Last season, I took in 
all about six or seven dozen larvae, and out of those barely a score of 
imagines emerged, the rest were stung. The first emerged in the last 
week of July, the last in the second week of August. The ichneumon 
did not emerge at the same time but much later. The larvae feed on 
bilberry only, at least that is the foodplant here, although heath and 
various grasses are growing amongst it. — J. Wylie, 12, Union Street 
Lane, Bridgend, Perth. February 20th, 1891. 
A good many years ago, when JV.sobrina\w2iSno\. so common as it is now, 
I investigated its life-history to a certain extent, and what I know about 
it is as follows : — The eggs laid in August, hatch the same season, and 
the larvae hybernate small, feeding up in the spring. The larva is very 
similar (speaking from memory) to N. brujinea^ N ditrapezium and 
their congeners, but, if I recollect rightly, duller and greyer. Its proper 
food I believe to be Vacciniu/u, hut I daresay it is not very particular. It 
was common enough in the Black Wood at Rannoch. It feeds at night. 
— C. Fenn, Lee. January, 1891. 
Uncertain appearance of certain Lepidoptera. — Mr. Reid (vol. i., 
p. 341) mentions the disappearance of Epunda lutulenta from his neigh- 
bourhood about 1875 1876. Singularly enough we lost this moth here 
about the same time. In 1875 was plentiful here, and for years before 
— in fact it was a species of which we always depended on getting enough. 
In 1876 not one was to be found, and, although the place was tried every 
year, I never saw a specimen there again till 1889, when two appeared 
at the old spot. In 1890 their numbers had increased, and now I hope 
we may have them with us again for a time. In 1871, and before that, 
Epunda viminalis was a common thing in a wood near me. In 1872 
they were absent, and I never got another at the place till 1888, when 
they suddenly appeared again in abundance. I used to get plenty of 
Agrotis tritici here till 1877, when they became scarce for a time, but in 
1882 and 1883 they turned out again as common as before. Since 
those two years, however, it is unusual to get one here. Many other 
species I have seen plentiful for a time, then scarce, and then become 
