Queries and Answers. 685 



head part is fastened to the tree or rock, but the moth escapes at the 

 opposite or tail^part ; but whether it backs out, or acts the part of the 

 lady's pony, as facetiously adverted to in p. 398., I have not discovered, 

 and have therefore enclosed you a specimen {fig. 119. a) of the pupa, with 



the exuviae at the opposite end to that by which the pupa is fastened. I 

 suspect that the circumstances are the same with the pupae of some 

 Tineae, of Oiketicos of Guilding, in Lin. Trans, (vol. xv. tab. 6.), and 

 with the Penthophera? mentioned at p. 252. of your current volume. 

 One of my larvae of Penthophera ? in the case, as spoken of in your 

 p. 232., lies motionless, and, I suspect, is in pupa (I send you a sketch 

 of its present appearance, b)-, the other began to move early in the 

 spring, and is now a larva on a sprig of birch : but I could not see that 

 it had eaten (since it ceased eating in the autumn) until lately, when it ate 

 a very little. Two or three specimens of the pupa (b) o'( this insect 

 were found, last autumn, near Heron Court, Hants, and given to Mr. 

 Curtis, by the Honourable C. A. Harris. I am. Sir, yours, &c. — J. C. Dale. 

 May, 1832. 



Mr. Dale's favour was received through the hands of Mr. Curtis, who 

 obligingly stated that the pupa case sent by Mr. Dale, and represented in 

 our figure («), assimilates closely to that of -Psyche nitidella of Huhnery 

 which Mr. Curtis has copied, and incidentally exhibited on his plate 332. ; 

 and which we have again copied, from Mr. Curtis's plate, in our figure (c). 

 The professed subject of Mr. Curtis's plate 332. is Psyche radiella of 

 Curtis, and his figure of this insect we have copied in our figure {d) ; and 

 Mr. Curtis hints that it is possible that the pupa case sent us by Mr Dale, 

 and represented in our figure («), is the pupa case of this Psyche radiella 

 Curtis. The pupa case, of which Mr. Dale sent us a sketch (6), 

 Mr. Curtis suspects may be the pupa case of the Penthophera nigricans of 

 his British Entomology (pi. 213.): the case is fabricated mainly of small 

 portions of the branches of the common ling (Calluna vulgaris Sal., Erica 

 vulgaris L.) The pupa cases of these two insects (Psyche radiella Curtis, 

 and Penthophera nigricans) have never yet been figured, or to a certainty 

 met with : we hope, therefore, should the pupa cases represented in our 

 figures (a and 6) develope these insects, Mr. Dale will be so obliging as 

 to tell us so ; or, if they develope insects of other species, as to tell us all 

 he can about them. From the able description and notices supplied by 

 Mr. Curtis, to his figure of Psyche radiella Curtis, in his British Entomo- 

 logy (pi. 332.), the following remarks, very valuable in themselves, and 

 pertinent to the question at issue, are quoted. — J. D. 



" Ochsenheimer [a most accurate observer of nature] makes some curious 

 observations respecting our insects : he says the male caterpillar turns 

 round in his case, or sack, before changing to a pupa, in order to be able 



