Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES, 1938 By W. EDNEY COX, F.R.E.S. From the beginning of March it was unusually warm, sunny and dry. In April it became cooler but continued very dry until the beginning of May, after which the weather was fairly normal. I saw Agalis urticae (Small Tortoiseshell) frequently from March 13th, and Nymphalis io (Peacock) occasionally from April 14th. White Butterflies were common from April 14th. The early Spring moths were well in evidence from early March. On March 26th, a friend gave me an Orneodes polydactyla, found on one of his windows in Cardiff; and on March 29th, I found another on one of our windows. On April 18th, a warm sunny afternoon, within half-an- hour, I netted six Mnemonica subpurpurella, which were flying along the main ride in Castell Coch Woods. I took a single example in the same locality on April 30th, 1937. The species is recorded in the County History as very local and scarce in Glamorgan. In the Notes for 1937, I referred to a larva of Acronycta alni, taken at Castell Coch, on 24th August, 1937. The moth, a o* emerged on 28th of May, 1938. On 4th of July, 1936, I obtained near Sully a plume moth, Marasmarcha phaeodactyla, which was then an addition to the Glamorgan list. In 1938, I worked a patch of Restharrow on a bank near the Railway Bridge carrying Cemetery Road, Taff's Well, and on July 18th and 26th, took five more ex- amples of this species. On 22nd July, 1938, I found a fresh example of the local and scarce moth Acronycta leporina at the back of our house in Cardiff, on a wall where a street lamp casts a bright light at night. The whole season was a very good one for insects. I spent many evenings collecting along a hedge bank, about 80 yards in length, facing East, between a meadow and the Cemetery Road, Taff's Well. The hedge includes Hawthorn, Black- thorn, Wild Rose, Oak, Hazel and Maple; and there is a con- siderable variety of low plants growing on the bank. During Spring and Summer evenings, with the sun shining and a Westerly (the prevailing) wind blowing on the back of the hedge, the hedge and bank on the road side, being shaded from the sun and sheltered from the wind, was the haunt of numerous small moths of many species. Many interesting