534 Short Communications : — 



quercus, both for the sake of illustrating the text and note, 

 and of exhibiting the two insects contradistinctorily. 



These remarks on synonymy adjusted, it will be fair to 

 exhibit the question, which arboriculturists have not omitted 

 to propose, — By what means can the extensive and injurious 

 ravages on the leaves of oak trees, &c., of the larvse or cater- 

 pillars of the Tortrix viridana be prevented? A question 

 worthy of answer. With regard to the perfect insect, White 

 observes, " I saw a flight of swifts busied in catching their 

 prey near the ground, and found they were hawking after 

 these phalaenae;" that is, moths of the Tortrix viridana. — J. Z>. 



The Five-spotted Burnet Moth {jLygce'na Ibti). — The spe- 

 cimens sent were taken, last summer (1833), near Thorparch. 

 In a field near that place, so plentiful was this insect, that 

 almost every prominent stalk of grass, &c., had a cocoon 

 upon it. — E, Wilso7i,jun. Chapel Allerto??, Mai/ 5. 1834. 

 ^ The Lacejly [Chrysbpa Perla L.) attaches its pedunculated 

 Eggs to ahnost any Object, — Many years since, I met with a 

 group of them on a twig, cut off, dead, and lying on the 

 ground, of a gooseberry bush. In the summer of this year 

 (1833), numerous groups of the eggs have been disposed 

 upon the leaves and branches of a large hop plant growing by 

 my place of abode. One group was affixed to the painted 

 surface of a wooden eaves* water-spout ; another to the under 

 surface of the leaf of a plant of passion flower. I did not 

 happen to see (for I did not search) any egg before about 

 July 4., although I had seen a pair of perfect chrysopas on 

 about June 26. The eggs were to be met with through July 

 and August. The first hatched eggs which I saw were seen 

 on July 15. For information on the habits of the insects of 

 this genus, see Samouelle's Entomological Cabinet^ No. ii. ; 

 and Rusticus of Godalming, in Ent, Mag.^ i. 223. — J, Z). 



The preceding paragraph, (which has been long in type) 

 does but tell a fact probably most familiarly known to those 

 experienced in the ways of insects. We may perhaps safely 

 connect with it a general inference to the extent that all in- 

 sects employ, indifferently, any mechanical object for a merely 

 mechanical end. A Syrphus, most probably S. balteatus, as it 

 is near the same hop plant off" which we obtained this species 

 in 1833 (see p. 184.), is now sticking to the inner face of the 

 door of an outbuilding close by the hop plant. Six cocoons 

 of the 2Jygae'na loti, kindly sent us by E. Wilson, jun. (see 

 above), are attached, three to portions of the stem of an 

 umbelliferous plant ; two, each to the branch, near the flower- 

 bead, of Centaur^a nigra ; and one to the culm of a J5r6mus, 



