NOTES ON COLLECTING, ETC. 
277 
produced disease in the specimens operated on, and that this disease 
had been accompanied by partial melanism, as almost all the perfect 
specimens were richly coloured, and the more or less crippled specimens 
were dark. His paper was meant to prove that cold had produced the 
melanism, which it indirectly had done, if the cold was the cause of the 
general crippling apparent. Mr. Baker referred certain Lyccence. to 
Thecla^ basing his conclusions on the fact that the neuration of the 
Lycaenids removed, were identical with that of Thecla^ and differed from 
all other species in Lycoe 7 ia. Mr. Bateson had made experiments on the 
coloration of cocoons of Eriogasier lanestris and Saturnia carpi 7 ii^ and 
attempted to disprove Mr. Boulton’s hypothesis, that the larvae of these 
species could spin either a pale or dark coloured cocoon according to 
their surroundings. His paper is sure to lead to further experiment in 
this direction. 
Deilephila livornica is recorded from Carrow, near Norwich, having 
come to the light of an electric lamp in September. This species is 
generally captured in or near nurserymen’s gardens in England, and 
are undoubtedly imported in the earlier stages. I have two pairs thus 
captured. 
Apamea ophiogramma larvae (identified by Mr. South) are said to 
have been taken in September, in Nottingham, and buried in cocoa-nut 
fibre about October 14th, but had not pupated ten days after {Ent., p. 
298). This is rather strange after Mr. Battley’s experience, Eiit. Eec., 
ante^ p. 19 1, Perhaps these larvae will, when the moths appear, prove 
to be some species other than ophiograiiwia. Mr. Gardner has captured 
the rare Boiys lupulitialis and Nephopteryx splendidella at Hartlepool. 
Mr. N. M. Richardson {E.M.M.) publishes the life-history of 
Plutella annulatella. 
Mr. Douglas describes a new species of Aleurodes {A. rubicola) from 
Blackheath ; whilst Mr. Newstead exhibited no less than six new species 
of Coccidce at the meeting of the Lancashire Society, on November 9th. 
An extensive partial double-brood of Stauropus fagi has occurred at 
Reading this autumn, a considerable number having been bred and 
captured during October by Messrs. Holland and Clarke. One was 
captured by Mr. Barnes as late as November 6th. 
The papers on “ Melanism and Melanochroismin British Lepidoptera” 
have been reprinted, and can now be had bound in cloth for 2s. 6 d. 
.^jOTES ON COLLECTING, Etc. 
Retrospect of a Lepidopterist for 1891. — The year 1891 is 
drawing to a close, and again I would draw the attention of our 
lepidopterists to a brief summary of the year’s work. From a collector’s 
point of view, the season has varied excessively with the locality, and 
comparatively near localites have differed remarkably. Taken all round, 
the season has been, perhaps, a better collecting season than last, in 
spite of the fact that 1891 will belong remembered by meteorologists 
as the year in which summer never came. Our Kent collectors send 
up a wail of woe; so, also, do the Scotch lepidopterists. Not one 
redeeming feature seems to have enlivened the hearts of the workers on 
the south-east coast, the north-east coast (Aberdeenshire) and Liverpool. 
