sixty trees in Set Thorns plantation, in the Forest, which a friend and I painted on nearly forty years ago.  This friend was fortunate in capturing the black variety of the White Admiral, in which the white markings are entirely absent on the upper side; and, thirty years later, his son took another near Burley.  The son also caught a Camberwell Beauty on one of his sugared patches in the day-time.  I believe this to be the only recorded instance of the occurrence of this rare and beautiful insect in the Forest.

The Hornet Clearwing (Sesia Apiformis) is a very interesting moth, and it was common at Aldington; the larva feeds on the wood of the black poplar.  The colouring of the moth so resembles the hornet, that at first sight it is easily mistaken for the latter.  It is an excellent example of “mimicry,” whereby a harmless insect acquires the distinctive appearance of a harmful one, and so secures immunity from the attacks of its natural enemies.

The larva of the Death’s Head was not uncommon at Aldington and Badsey on potatoes; I had a standing offer of threepence each for any that the village children could bring me.  These large caterpillars require very careful handling, and I fear the children were not gentle enough with them, as I only had one perfect specimen moth from all the larvae they brought.

One of my hop-pickers captured and presented me with a very fine specimen of the Convolvulus Hawk-moth at Aldington; they were generally comparatively common that year (1901) and a collector took no less than seventeen in a few days in the public garden at Bournemouth.

The Clouded Yellow butterfly, whose appearance is very capricious, occurred one summer in Worcestershire in considerable numbers; it is strong on the wing and could easily reach the Midlands in fine weather from the south of England, where it is more often seen.  Those I saw were flying high over clover fields, apparently in a hurry to get further north-west.

The Marbled White is a somewhat local butterfly; there was a spot along the Terrace on Cleeve Hill, near North Littleton and Cleeve Prior, where, at the proper time, this insect was plentiful, but I never saw it anywhere else in the neighbourhood.

One of the entomological prizes of the New Forest is the Purple Emperor; it is impossible to do justice to the wonderful sheen of its powerful wings.  It inhabits the tops of lofty oaks, but does not disdain to come down for a drink of water, sometimes from a muddy pool, or even to feast on dead vermin which the keepers have destroyed.

The Comma, so called from the C-mark on the under side of the hind wings, is fairly plentiful in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in the hop-districts, for the hop is its food plant; but it is curious that, with the abundance of hops in Kent, Sussex, and Hants, it is quite a rare insect in the south of England.  The ragged edge of its hind wings is probably an arrangement to baffle birds in pursuit, offering more difficulty to securing a sure hold than is afforded by the even margin of the hind wings of most butterflies.