HEARING LARVAE OF TORTRICIDS. 263 



be taken never to introduce any food in a damp state, from either dew 

 or rain, or mould will be the immediate result. These species will 

 spin up among their food-plant, and emerge in many cases in a fort- 

 night, in all cases within the same season. The few species in these 

 groups, such as Tortrix icterana and mburnana and (Enectra pilleri- 

 ana, which generally feed on succulent low-growing plants, should 

 have plenty of air, not being covered with glass unless the food begins 

 to wither, such plants becoming very quickly rotten if covered closely 

 down. This is also the case with the curious balls of young bramble 

 leaves twisted up by the larva of Notocelia admanniana. 



" In the cases of the very numerous species which feed in the shoots 

 of shrubs and low plants, eating out the young leaves, such as the 

 larger species of Antithesia, Hypermecia, Brachytaenia, Pardia, 

 Spilonota, Hedya, Steganoptycha, parts of Paramesia, Semasia, and 

 Pcecilochroma, much judgment must be used. Where the shoots are 

 of hard-leaved bushes and plants, and the larva does not pack its 

 domicile with frass, tins or gallipots may be used and covered with 

 glass, or wholly or partially uncovered, as seems necessary from the 

 state of the weather or the condition of the food; but shoots of soft- 

 leaved low -growing plants, and those which, as in the case of Siega- 

 noptycJia ruevana, are apt to be full of frass, should be put into ordi- 

 nary rough flower-pots and tied tightly down with calico, old lining, 

 or any close-textured material that comes to hand. These pots allow 

 a good deal of evaporation, and if dry moss is introduced it will also 

 absorb some of the superfluous moisture, so that glass may be laid 

 either completely or partially over these also, to keep the food from 

 withering, but it must be frequently removed and the food stirred up 

 and examined and prevented from becoming mouldy or rotten. The 

 same should be done with larva? of Sericoris, some of which feed in 

 flower-spikes as well as young shoots, and are therefore still more 

 liable to injury from mould or decay. But of all the low-plant feed- 

 ers the most difficult by far to rear are the Sciaphilre. It is bardly 

 possible to keep the solid composite flowers in which 8. perternna and 

 S. icleriana feed from becoming mouldy, and the larva? do not will- 

 ingly move to fresh flowers. Perhaps the best plan is to tie up the 

 infested flowers with others in close bunches, so that air can get round 

 them, and then tie them down in flower- pots. The shoots and curved 

 leaves in which mrgaureana and other species feed can only be treated 

 as before described. But the difficulty of keeping the food in good 

 condition is as nothing compared to the difficulty of keeping the larva? 

 in any sort of confinement. They seem beyond measure impatient of 

 imprisonment, and as soon as they discover the least closeness in the 

 air, or change of condition in the food, begin to wander round the 

 vessel, and try by every possible means to escape. If it is not veiy 



