Having made some oak plantations, though only on a small scale, near our resi- dence, we have occasionally found therein Theclflj quercus (purple hairstreak butterfly) and Melitaea Euphrosyn (pearl- bordered fritillary), insects which previously we had never seen within some miles of the spot.

We have seldom planted the Athenian poplar without finding it taken possession of by Smerinthus populi (poplar hawk moth), and Ceriira vinula (puss moth), and sometimes by other less common Phalsenidae.

The copious growth of broom in our plantations induced for several seasons the appearance of Phalsena spartiata (broom moth, Chesias spartiata Stephens), a species which we had not observed before, and which has disappeared again since the removal of the broom on which the larva feeds.

The cater- pillar of Acherontia Atropos (deaths head sphinx), it is well known, feeds on the potato ; the very extensive cultivation of which valuable root in the present day will at once account for the far more frequent occurrence of this fine insect of late years than formerly, The same law, or something analo- gous to it, holds good also in the vegetable as well as animal world.

Plants sometimes spring up, as it were, spontaneously, or, at least, nobody knows how, as soon as the soil and situation are rendered suitable to their growth.