bourhood, which I paid great attention to, but they did not produce me a specimen. A. Lathonia was captured in a small almost barren pasture adjoining the road, and was also taken from a blossom of the dandelion; soil heavy clay. I should be extremely obliged if you would inform me whether this be the usual time of this butterfly's appearance.—W. Gaze; Lavenham, Suffolk, October 6, 1842.
Enquiry respecting a stridulant Insect. You would oblige me were you to let me know the name of a little stridulant creature, to which I frequently listened during the silent watches of the night in the month of August. My elegant bed-chamber was in a heaththatched cottage in the island of Arran; and before I fell asleep, and when I awoke during the night, I generally heard a low stridulous sound proceeding from something near the bed. It was like a watchman's very very feeble rattle—much more feeble than the sound of the grasshopper; and it was continuous, lasting however only while I could deliberately count three or four. It was repeated at irregular intervals of a minute, or rather more. The only inmates of the cottage I could willingly have dispensed with, were strolling parties of Goerius olens, or the "devil's coach-horse;" but whether this was the guard blowing his horn, the deponent knoweth not. If so, he could have wished brighter angels to guard him during his slumbers.—D. Landsborough; Stevenston, Ayrshire, October, 1842.
[Your correspondent will find in Kirby and Spence's 'Introduction to Entomology,' ii. 381—2, an account of the insects which most likely produced the sounds he heard in "Archie Hamilton's cottage," at Knockingelly. They were probably produced by "little beetles belonging to the timber-boring genus Anobium,"—perhaps A. tessellatum, Fabr. The Atropos pulsatorius (Termes pulsatorius, L.), so commonly found amongst books, dried plants, &c, is also believed to make a slight noise, and in fact has derived its specific name from this circumstance.— A. White; 61, Judd St., London, Oct. 11, 1842.]
Deilephila Galii. A fine male specimen of this insect was taken on the 15th of September on a heap of stones at Whitefield, near Bury, a few miles from this place.—R.S. Edleston; Cheetham, Manchester, November 3, 1842.
Acherontia Atropos. On the 22nd of September Acherontia Atropos (fem.), flew into a house near Heaton Park, to the great alarm of some females assembled at tea; the utterance of its shrill cry made the matter worse: fortunately it was rescued from destruction. About the same time a male specimen was captured on the highway near Staley Bridge. These and the above specimen of D. Galii are in my
