74 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
minutely examined all the ground between Kinvara and Tyrone for two whole 
days, without meeting a single specimen of Anthrocera. It was too early in the 
season for A. filipendulae ; the cocoons of which insect were, however, pretty 
abundant. During the entire of these days I wandered from field to field, expect¬ 
ing every moment either to see A. minos, or, at least, to find some ground that 
would be likely to be inhabited by it. But all the fields were either under culti¬ 
vation or consisted of poor pasture land, closely eaten by the cows and goats of 
the inhabitants. The large blocks of limestone with which they were all, more or 
less, densely strewn, being covered by ivy or by the loosely-trailing bramble. 
Polyommatus alsus and Paraphila linea were flying about by the roadside and 
hedges in tolerable abundance. At the beginning of my third day’s search it 
became quite apparent that I was not in the proper locality, and I determined to go 
to Ardrahan at once. I spent the better part of a day there, but without the 
smallest success. As the day waned, I made up my mind that the excessive back¬ 
wardness of the season must have affected the little minos ; and, though somewhat 
disappointed, I resolved to leave Galway that evening and re-visit this locality 
still later in the spring; but on my way back to Kinvara I, at last, entered a 
large field which was overgrown with Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Dryas octopetala, 
Sesleria coerulea, Gentiana verna, and other plants, at the sight of which I felt quite 
sure that if A. minos had seen this year sunshine it was not very far from me now : 
and so it happened; for, while stooping to gather the pretty Dryas octopetala, an A. 
minos lighted quite passively on the flower, and was, in a very brief moment, trans¬ 
ferred to my collecting-box. All my disappointment was now over ; for in the brief 
space of three or four hours I collected a very fair stock of specimens. When 
tired of this sport, and having secured all that I thought requisite to gratify my 
friend the director of the Museum of the Dublin Society, I proceeded to investi¬ 
gate the habitat of the insect, and with the following result. I observed that 
wherever the A. minos was to be found, there the plants that I have particu¬ 
larised were to be found also ; and so remarkable was this love of locality, 
that I did not find this insect either near Kinvara or Tyrone, but only in a 
few fields about Ardrahan. It is quite possible that later in the season it 
will spread itself much more widely ; for, when I found it, it could have emerged 
from its pupa state but a very brief time, none of the specimens being rubbed 
in the slightest degree. Whether this species would become extinct if its favourite 
plants (for I am inclined to think that the finding these plants and insects together 
is something more than accidental, and there is an apparent necessity of the former 
to the latter) were destroyed by the advance of cultivation, may for some time remain 
a query. I fear, however, it would be the case; nor do I think it at all likely, as some 
English entomologists hint, that it will be found in any parts of England except intro¬ 
duced ; and, even then its existence will, in all probability, be the lifetime of a day. 
One of its chief food plants is Polygala vulgaris (it is called Polygala by Borkhau- 
sen). This plant grows in the greatest abundance in all the fields here, and seemed 
to be fed upon by its larva. At the same time, it is most probable that it feeds on 
various other plants, as, if we can judge from M.M. Schiffermuller and Denis’s 
account, itwould not seem to be very particular. The perfect insect differs slightly 
from the figures of continental specimens, but by no means so much as often exists 
between the same species when found on continents and islands, or even as much as 
our Silpha atrata differs from English examples. Anthrocera minos was first 
characterized in 1770 by the authors of the “ Systematic Catalogue of the Lepi- 
doptera of the Country about Vienna (Schiffermueller and Denis, Professors of 
the Theresian Institute), and has been often confounded, and even by Eabricius 
himself, with A. scabiosse ; while some have applied the name minos to the last. 
“ The caterpillars,” say the authors above mentioned, u feed on clover (Trifolium), 
Veronica officinalis, Biza minor, Cynosurus cristatus, Genista tinctoria, and Thymus 
serpyllum; it is like that of A. scabiosse, but is pale yellow (not golden yellow, as 
that), with two rows of twelve black spots. The cocoon is very convex, and of a 
brownish-yellow colour; the pupa black brown on the head, wing sheaths, 
and back, elsewhere yellowish. The fly appears in three weeks, and is on the wing 
from the end of June on to August, in most parts of the continent of Europe.” It 
