25 
PAPERS READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY. 
NOTES ON THE COSMIIME. 
(Read March 7th, 1911, by P. H. TAUTZ, F.E.S.) 
In preparing these few notes on the Cosmiidae, I very quickly came 
to the conclusion that, as I am only able to treat the group from a 
collector’s and not from a Scientist’s point of view, it would be as well 
to make them as short as possible. I have not for instance attempted 
any descriptions or discussions of any of the various stages, as I should 
be quite unable to tell you anything about them that you do not already 
know, neither have I attempted to make any extracts from books. In 
this way the evening may be devoted rather to a general discussion 
and exhibition of the group amongst the members. Generally speaking 
I look to this evening as one in which I shall be able to teach nothing, 
but one in wffiich I hope to learn a lot. Having made this frank 
confession, I will make a start on my few collecting notes, relative to 
this group of moths, that, in the flattering words of one of our 
members, “ I am going to do my best to mutilate this evening.” (This 
gentleman seems quite full of misgivings as to the result of my to-night’s 
intentions, for he has advised me to hang a notice round my neck asking 
you “ not to shoot as I am doing my best.”) The group is of course 
quite a small one and not difficult to master as a collector, and as you 
will see by the cabinet drawer that I have brought with me to-night in 
illustration, I am fairly well represented in all of them; this is 
principally accounted for by the fact that they are all to be found 
commonly enough at Pinner, where for six years I have taken three of 
them freely both at sugar and at light, and the other one more sparingly. 
The members of this group, so far as my knowledge of them goes, 
do not seem to be at all given to melanism, except possibty 0. trapezina 
and even then in very rare instances. There is one amongst my 
extreme forms that is the nearest approach that I possess, or in fact that 
I have seen, with the exception of one which was exhibited by one of 
our members, Mr. P. S. Williams, some six weeks back, viz,, v. niyra 
(Tutt), taken at Finchley, July, 1910. 
I will now deal with them one by one and relate what little I know 
of them, and leave it to others more able than myself to expound any 
problematical features that the group may possess. 
C. trapezina .—From about June 25th, and throughout July, and 
the first half of August I have taken this insect commonly at sugar, though 
it has also flown to light pretty freely. In the Pinner district during 
May and the first half of June the larvae are nearly every year excessively 
abundant, and I am of opinion that their cannibalistic tendencies do 
good rather than harm, by reducing the overwhelming numbers of the 
larvae of C. brumata, to which they seem to devote the greater part of 
their attention ; this opinion is not exactly original, as I have heard 
it expressed by most entomologists of my acquaintance. If they ever 
xxi. 
