Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/205

Rh between Shooter's hill and Footscray, walking by way of Half-way-street, I saw an immense number of butterflies, which the warmth of the day had awakened from their hybernation. Every one knows that in the spring many insects appear which have remained torpid during the winter; but the number I saw on Sunday was quite extraordinary, there being hundreds of Vanessa Io, Polychloros, and Urticae; the two first species being the most numerous. They were sporting and fluttering about, and sipping the honey from the flowers of the blackthorn, which was in great profusion. I counted four within a space of half a yard, and they were proportionally thick wherever a piece of blossom was to be seen. Gonepteryx Rhamni was in still greater number than any of the before mentioned species, and, with them, made a scene quite wonderful, and such as I shall not soon forget.—J.W. Douglas; 6, Grenville Terrace, Coburg Road, Kent Road, April 20, 1843.

Note on the occurrence of Coleopterous Insects during high Floods. Mr. Hewitson's graphic account of his captures of "beetles during a flood, I can well believe, having once been witness to a scene somewhat similar. In the autumn of 1841, the Trent overflowed its banks, and for a time covered the greater part of our rich meadows. Having previously observed many beetles to be swimming about in the ditches, when the water was rising, I took advantage of the circumstance, and, equipped with a canvas net and a number of bottles, waded into the meadows where the water was just rising above the short grass; and great was my surprise to see that every "bent" of grass and every tall weed was completely covered with Coleoptera, clinging to each other like swarms of bees, forming, to those who are accustomed to " see great things in small," as lively a picture as possible of the alarm and confusion we may suppose were caused among our ancestors by the great deluge. My employment, whilst wading amid these drowning myriads, was merely to draw my net along the surface of the water, and to put the beetles, almost by handfuls, into the bottles; but even this, at last, grew wearisome, and I kept on carefully dragging my net, until it was half full of beetles and vegetable fragments: this I then rolled up and carried home, where it took all the spare time I could find on the three following days, to separate the entomological from the botanical contents, and to put the former into spirits. The locality I chose was at the foot of a high and well-wooded bank; this, no doubt, added materially to the number of insects in the adjacent meadow. I have not yet had time to sort out one half of the specimens I then put into pickle, but from what I have examined, I judge that I am much more fortunate than Mr. Hewitson in point of species, though not equalling him in the quantity of specimens captured. The species consist almost entirely of the Geodephaga and Brachelytra: of these there are many I had never captured before. But independently of the intrinsic value of the captures, there is a feeling of satisfaction acquired when one traverses a particular hunting ground during a flood, and sees its whole produce spread out before our eyes,— knowing that it cannot yield anything which is not immediately within our reach.—Edwin Brown; Burton-on-Trent, April 28, 1843.

Note on Entomological Collecting Boxes; with description of one on a new principle. Having devoted the greater part of my leisure time during the two past seasons to collecting the smaller British moths, I was led to try several methods of securing them when captured, in order to choose the best. I found that whenever I pinned small moths in an ordinary chip collecting box, they invariably, on warm days, became too much stiffened to allow of their being set in a neat and pleasing manner; nor would the relaxing box restore their pliancy sufficiently to prevent them from springing back