what a scene awaited us. We had expected to find the moths still flying about the ivy, and to catch some of them with difficulty. Neither supposition was right: there was not a moth on the wing, but the whole bush, which overhung the road most conveniently, was full of the beauties, quietly sipping the honey of the flowers, and though we turned our lights full on them they heeded us not. Fancy our delight! Judge of our ecstacy! There are no words to paint the emotion. Deer-stalking would be tame in comparison; bison-hunting nothing to it. For here was not one individual prey, nor even several of one sort, but hundreds of creatures of a dozen different kinds, of which we had only seen dry specimens in cabinets, all alive and within our power, and new to our possession. Their eyes shone like constellations, and we paused awhile, paralyzed with the enchantment of the scene. When we found they were still not scared at our presence, we shook the ivy over a net, and selected the specimens we wanted at our leisure, letting the rest escape. I need not record the names of all the species we took, as the plan pursued has since been extensively followed, and the species of autumn moths to be thus taken are well known; but I may mention two, Xylina semibrunnea and Dasycampa rubiginea, at that time exceedingly rare; the latter, indeed, still remains one of our scarcest species. We also took several of a scarce beetle, Oncomera Podagraria.

Stone walls are not so disagreeable to moths as those of brick. In the North the collectors take on them Cloantha Solidaginis and Crymodes Templi: the latter

species also in the heaps of iron-stone.

I believe also Polia Chi and other northern species which I never saw alive are also found sitting on walls.

Mr. John Scott thus writes about Chrysoclista Schrankella, one of our prettiest small moths, of a deep orange colour spotted with black :-" The larva feeds on Epilobium alsinefolium. This plant I find pretty abundant here (Renfrew) at the bottoms of walls in marshy situations, and I have found as many as three or four larvæ feeding upon one plant. They are easily detected; being miners the leaf becomes discoloured, and thus their habitation is at once made known. The larvæ are to be found in May; they are of a dirty greenish brown colour, and when full-grown are about threeeighths of an inch in length. In my breeding-cages I had the insect in all its stages of larva, pupa and imago at the same time. When about to undergo its transformation, which is about the first week in June, the larva quits the interior of the leaf, and either crawls away to the bud of some plant near at hand, which it draws together with beautiful white silken threads, or it rolls half-round the edge of one of the leaves of the plant on which it has fed, and then constructs a snow-white covering, in which it changes to a brown pupa. The perfect insect appears in from fourteen to eighteen days after the transformation."

* 'Zoologist,' 1853, p. 3778.

§ VII.

THE HEATHS AND COMMONS.

"Soft heath this elevated spot supplied."

"Across a bare wide common I was toiling
With languid steps that by the slippery ground
Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse
The host of insects gathering round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along."

WORDSWORTH.

WHAT a glorious flush of beauty, a sense of ripeness and maturity, comes on one when gazing over an expanse of

a floral ocean, unruffled midst the illuminating glory of the summer's sun; with no sound audible but the murmur of the wild bees' hum. To no one, however unpoetical his nature, can such a scene be aught but delightful and suggestive. To the entomologist it is not productive of many of his favourites, but it has some specialities. Among the bees, Colletes succincta, Andrena pubescens, humble-bees (Bombi), the honey-bee and others are particularly partial to the flowers of heath, and except a common butterfly or two,

Observe

grasshoppers and flies (Diptera), they are almost all the insects that can be seen during the heat of the day. But early in the afternoon insect-life begins to awake, and so numerous do certain insects become that it seems impossible they should have been on the spot all the day. In May the fox-moth careers madly over the field, now close to you and now out of sight; yet "there is method in his madness,”he is fiercely in love, and is in search of his bride, who rests passively, expecting his attentions, and good-naturedly or pettishly waiting until her lover's vagaries are over. the spot he most affects, and by looking carefully you will probably see his lady-love deep among the heather or ascending the stems; then station yourself near, and you will soon have a chance of catching the rover; but, as he comes like a whirlwind, it is most likely you will miss him if you strike too soon-the Fabian policy is the best, and you will succeed by delay. The old collectors used, when they had reared a female of this and other allied species of the Bombycina, to take her to the locality frequented by the species, and her attractive powers rewarded them by bringing within their reach many of the males. But examples caught on the wing are always more or less rubbed. The finest specimens are obtained by breeding, but the cage in which the caterpillars are kept must remain out of doors. Doubleday has given the following directions: large box, about ten inches deep, the bottom of which is bored with a number of holes to allow the water to drain out, and the top covered with wire-gauze. In this box I place a

* The Entomologist,' p. 327.

Mr. Henry "I take a

turf of heath, cut to fit it; the caterpillars are placed in it in the autumn, and fed as long as the leaves last, or until they become torpid: they are then left in the garden exposed to all the changes of the weather. The first warm days in March bring them out, and they bask in the sun for a week or two, but never feed in the spring. About the middle of April they begin spinning their cocoons, and by the end of May or early in June the moths appear. I have adopted this plan for several seasons, and have always had abundance of moths produced. The same plan answers equally well with the larvæ of Phragmatobia fuliginosa and other species that live through the winter." The beautiful Endromis versicolor, or Kentish Glory, has been taken, particularly in Perthshire, where it is more common than in the South of England, the males by watching for them as they flew about the vicinity of the females, and the latter by having the place of their concealment betrayed by the attentions of the males. The "fox-moth" caterpillar feeds on clover, brambles and other plants on heaths, and commons, and may often be found in September. It is very hairy and glossy, with alternate bands of black and yellow. The larvæ of the 'Glory" are not often obtained: they feed upon birch trees, and cling very tightly, so that they are not easily shaken off.

66

I had almost forgotten, among the day-fliers, Anarta Myrtilli, far too beautiful a creature to be overlooked, though you would nevertheless be very likely to do so, or at most only get a glimpse of it, so rapid are its motions. And so. restless is it in the net when captured that it will probably injure itself considerably before you can secure it. The