l88 FLINT IMPLEMENTS AT WALTON-ON-NAZE.
in consequence of the removal of the soluble portions of the silex.
Mr. Smith describes it as follows:—"Ovate, with ogee-curved
edges, cutting edge all round; white, slightly abraded, somewhat
lustrous, slightly marked with ferruginous stains from contact
with the iron of agricultural tools, exactly agreeing with the
small white lustrous ovate implements found by Mr. B. Harrison,
near Ightham, Kent. Length, 23/8 inches; width, 15/8 inches;
weight, 11/2 oz."
The subsoil at the back of Lexden Park is composed of River-
gravel and sand, and it would appear from the position in which
the palaeolith was found (at the base of the British or Roman earth-
work) that it had been disturbed by the plough from the soil of this
embankment, which is composed of the river gravel in or on which
the implement had been deposited. It is probable that further
examples exist in the locality, and attention is being paid to it with a
view to their discovery.
Deilephila galii in Essex.—On the warm sunny afternoon of September
13th, as Mr. E. A. Fitch and myself were strolling round the shore of Osey
Island, in the Blackwater estuary, Mr. Fitch's attention was attracted to some
specimens of Lycaena medon, and while stopping to box one of the butterflies,
he caught sight of a caterpillar of D. galii on a small patch of somewhat stunted
Galium verum growing on the sloping bank of the higher land bordering the
shore. Very shortly afterwards I found two other larvae at the same spot. A
careful search by Mr. Fitch and myself and brothers of the scanty patches of
Galium along nearly the whole shores of the island, both on this occasion and
again on September 16th, failed to reward us with further captures, although we
observed traces of larvae. Possibly we were too late for any but stragglers.
Several captures of the moth and caterpillars in Essex this year have been
recorded in the "Entomologist." At a meeting of the North Kent Entomolo-
gical Society on August 2nd, Mr. Graham exhibited a fine specimen of Deilephila
galii, which was knocked down by a boy with his cap at Silvertown, on July
23rd (H. J. Webb, Entom. xxi., p. 231). On August 2nd, Mr. P. J. Tudor
records the capture of a specimen of the moth hovering over a geranium, at
Buckhurst Hill (ibid, p. 231); and Mr. J. A. Cooper says that he took about a
dozen larvae from the sand-hills near Shoeburyness (ibid, p. 257). The 
have been taken by hundreds at Deal, and in smaller numbers on the Suffolk larvae
coast, also in Norfolk, Cheshire, etc. Indeed 1888 bids fair to become noted in
entomological annals as a "Galii year."—B. G. Cole, Buckhurst Hill, October,
1888.
Acherontra atropos at Maldon.—On the morning of the Club's excursion
on the Blackwater Estuary, September 15th, Mr. A. J. Furbank, the acting Town
Clerk of the new Borough of Chelmsford, while on his way to join the party on
the Hythe, found a fine dark specimen (male) of the "Deaths-head Moth" at
rest on the pavement in the High Street, Maldon. The peculiar stridulating
powers of the insect were fully in evidence, and were demonstrated repeatedly,
much to the interest and amusement of the members assembled to embark on the
"Rose." Mr. Furbank kindly presented this specimen to me, and it is now in
our collection.—B. G. Cole, Buckhurst Hill, October, 1888.