OBSERVED IN HERTFORDSHIRE IN 1904 . 
161 
was taken so far north as Carlisle. There are several records from 
Wales, but I cannot find any notice' of its occurrence in the 
midland, and I can only find one in the eastern, counties, this 
solitary record being that of a specimen taken at Felixstowe. 
D. livornica occurred both in the spring and autumn, and the 
probability appears to be that the early specimens were immigrants, 
the fringe of a great general movement northwards from the shores 
of Africa, while the autumn captures were British-born offspring 
of these travellers. I cannot hear of any stragglers having reached 
our county, but I have a note of the occurrence of D. livornica at 
Battler’s Green, Aldenham, in 1898, which has not yet found 
a place on our record. The specimen I show was taken by Miss Ada 
Selby in her garden at Battler’s Green, and I learn from her that 
she has since caught a second example at the same place. In a 
previous report I have drawn attention to one other appearance 
of this fine moth in our county twenty years previously, Mr. W. C. 
Boyd having been fortunate enough to take it at Cheshunt on 
25th August, 1868. Another of the large Sphinges, Sphinx 
convolvuli , the convolvulus hawk-moth, was also remarkably 
abundant last year. A specimen, very much damaged, was 
brought to me from Harpurbury, and I heard of a second being- 
taken in the outskirts of St. Albans. Mr. Barraud also records it 
from Bushey Heath. Another interesting capture is that of the 
small elephant hawk-moth, Chcerocampa porcellus , by Mr. Arthur 
Cottam at Watford. On the 2nd of July he took a female specimen 
of this beautiful moth flying over a honeysuckle bush in his 
garden. 
On the 1st of May I noticed on the aconite plants at Kitchener’s 
Meads, a number of small green larvae covered with hairy tubercles. 
They had drawn together the young leaves of the terminal shoots, 
and were eating out the undeveloped flower-buds. Suspecting 
that they were the young caterpillars of Plusia moneta , I collected 
them for observation. When placed in the larva-cage they fed 
up quickly. After the first change of skin the creature entirely 
changes its appearance and becomes a caterpillar of a pronounced 
Plusia type, of a bright green colour, with a paler spiracular line, 
and with the anterior segments smaller than the succeeding ones. 
It is very partial to monkshood, Aconitum napellus , though 
delphinium is generally regarded as its favourite plant, and it 
is also said to feed upon the globe-flower, Trollius europceus , but 
my larvae rejected both these latter plants in favour of aconite. 
I tried to induce them to accept delphinium, but they contented 
themselves with nibbling the young leaves, and then returned to 
the monkshood. There are many clumps of delphinium growing 
in the garden, but no trace of the larvae of Moneta was discovered 
upon them. The pupa is enclosed in a cocoon of white silk, which 
assumes a bright golden yellow colour in the presence of moisture, 
the change in tint even being caused by the introduction of 
a damp sprig of the food-plant into the cage. The cocoons are 
generally formed on the underside of the lower leaves, the colour 
