ON THE GENUS ORGYIA. 
343 
do in this country. As before remarked, I have constantly found it to affect 
umbrageous Elms, evincing so marked a predilection for this particular tree, that 
the species might have been named very appropriately the Elm Bunting. Its 
song is comparatively seldom heard from the hedge. I have repeatedly met with 
it, indeed with several individuals, singing from the tops of a clump of Elms 
surrounding a farm-house, which, throughout the south of England, is a very 
likely situation to meet with it. It is rarely noticed but within a few miles of 
the sea, and appears to be most abundant in certain districts of the Isle of 
Wight. Near Chichester, and again at Alton, it is not uncommon; and lately, 
while enjoying the view from the summit of Selborne Church, I noticed two of 
them singing in the vicar s garden beneath me, though the species was unnoticed 
by Gilbert White. Proceeding inland it rapidly disappears, and at Godaiming 
is accounted a rare bird. Now and then a specimen is taken, mostly in winter, 
by the London bird-catchers, who seem to consider it a prize; but it can only 
be regarded as a straggler near the metropolis. It is sparingly diffused over the 
greater part of Hampshire, and also, I should suspect, Dorsetshire; but I cannot 
speak from personal observation to the westward of Hants. It is popularly 
known in the Isle of Wight by the name “ French Yellowhammer,” and par¬ 
tially, both there and elsewhere, by the term “Black-throated Yellowhammer,” 
which are the only provincial epithets I have heard applied to it. The young appear 
to be extremely hardy, for during a pedestrian tour I carried one in a box in my 
coat-pocket for several days, feeding it on what various fare I could pick up by 
the way. This bird is now alive and healthy. I captured it near Yarmouth in 
the Isle of Wight. 
North Brixton^ Surrey^ Aug. 19, 1837. 
A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON THE GENUS ORGYIA. 
By G. C. Gascoyne. 
Two of the principal entomological works referred to by students in that 
science in this country, namely Stephens’s and Rennie’s, differ so widely in 
the descriptions of the Orgyia^ and are altogether so imperfect (to say the least 
of it) in that part referring to the larvae, that any one previously unacquainted 
from actual observation would not be able, from their descriptions—even if he 
had a caterpillar of Orgyia gonostigma before him—^to recognize it as belonging to 
that insect. 
The genus orgyia contains only two species, Orgyia antiqua and 0. gonostigma. 
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