24 
EARLY REMINISCENCES 
a strong opinion that one of my Rannoch Tortrices was “ new ” 
finally decided that it was nothing hut an extreme variety of Grapho- 
litha paykulliana, Eabr. (r amelia, Linn.)* 
Mr. Stainton wrote me in reference to some Rannoch Tineina: 
“ The insects in yonr box which have interested me most are Nos. 3 
and 4, of which you say : ‘ Bred and beaten from ash. Larva olive 
colour, with brown dorsal stripe/ They are the dark variety of 
Prays curtisellus , which I have never bred, though I have often bred 
the ordinary white form. Many entomologists think the dark 
specimens ought to be a distinct species/’ 
In England the heat of the summer of 1868 was unprecedented. 
It had the effect of greatly reducing the numbers of heath-feeding 
larvae on Wimbledon Common: another result, perhaps, was the 
occurrence of several specimens of Pyrameis eardui at Wandsworth, 
though it had also occurred there in the previous year. At the 
blossoms of Petunia in my father’s garden in September, I saw Sphinx 
convolvuli , as well as another large Hawk-moth, which I thought at 
the time to be Aeherontia atropos . That autumn I bred two 
specimens of Peronea rufana, Schiff. ( autumnana , Hubn.) of the 
variety bistriana, from larvae taken on White-Poplar in Southfield, 
Wandsworth, between one and two miles from the old Wimbledon 
Common locality. 1 
In 1869 I had some very pleasant collecting at Forres, in Moray¬ 
shire, with the late Mr. George Norman, of which an account 
appeared in the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine (Yol. VI., p. 214). 
Again my almost wild desire to capture a species new to Britain 
was disappointed. Some very distinct Depressariae attached to 
Broom, in which all the veins were marked with fuscous, and in 
some cases the thorax striped with the same colour, turned out to be 
merely a variety of the common D. costosa. However in this, perhaps 
at that time my favourite genus, I shortly afterwards had the 
pleasure of identifying as D. cnicella , Treit., some specimens taken 
on Hayling Island by Mr. Moncreaff among Sea Holly ( Eryngium 
maritimum), the insect being then, so far as I know, unrecorded as 
British. 
At Forres I found a larva on the Sweet Gale {Myrica gale) which 
I felt sure at the time must be that of Aeronyeta myricae , Guen. 
(euphorbiae, Schiff.), then undescribed. Accordingly I described it 
with great care, and hopefully watched it pupate, but alas! the 
imago never emerged. A description published a few years later 
proved that my conjecture was a sound one. While at Forres I 
1 Entomologist's Monthly Magazine , Yol. VI., November, 1869, p. 143. 
