:ilii THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Fletcher, who was much interested in the matter, and sent the fly to Prof. 

 Hine, who determined it as belonging to the species named above, but 

 could give no information as to its early stages. 



On 17th June, 1908, Dr. Fletcher wrote me as follows: 

 " ' Lyman's mystery,' your supposed larva of the fly from Scarboro', 

 Maine, has been one of the funniest things to rear that I have ever tried. 

 One of the two specimens you sent to me last autumn was almost dead 

 when received and did not recover. The other I got through the winter 

 and this spring it revived about the beginning of May and ate very spar- 

 ingly through May and June, I suppose not as much as one good big leaf 

 the whole time. Its chief food was dead birch leaves after they had 

 become damp in the tin. It also ate one good meal from dandelion and 

 a small one from some leaves of Aster cordifolius, and the first day I 

 brought it up it nibbled a little from the edge of a violet leaf, but I came 

 to the conclusion that, like Epizeuxis and some other moths, its natural 

 food-plant was dead leaves. This larva pupated on 15th, and I am most 

 anxiously awaiting to see what will emerge." The pupa disclosed the 

 imago about 27th June, 1908, and it proved to be a small Deltoid moth, 

 which was found, on my visit to Washington last spring, to be Philometra 

 metonalis, Walk. 



On 13th June, 1908, Dr. Fletcher made a description of the larva, 

 with brief notes on its habits, and a few days later additional notes on the 

 cocoon, for a copy of which to incorporate in this paper I am indebted to 

 Mr. Arthur Gibson, his Chief Assistant: 



"Length, 15 mm: width, 2.5 mm. at widest part. Head, 1.25 mm. 

 wide, rounded, drab, mottled with purple ; bilobed at apex ; mouth-parts 

 darkened. Body cylindrical, tapering a little to each end. General 

 markings : a conspicous dorsal stripe from segments 2 to 13, a narrow sub- 

 dorsal line on a pale subdorsal field ; a wide suprastigmatal band bearing 

 in its centre the third series of tubercles, in front of each of which is a 

 dark blotch ; substigmatal fold pale, mottled with purple. Thoracic 

 shield drab, with pale stripe in the middle lined on each side with black ; 

 5 small bristles on each side, two in front, three behind, sloping forward 

 over the head, shield bearing the end of the suprastigmatal band as a dark 

 blotch at lower end. Dorsal stripe dark olive-black, conspicuous. Sup- 

 rastigmatal band wide and purplish-brown, mottled. The two subdorsal 

 series of tubercles almost in a line. Sublateral series in a straight line 

 above and slighthly anterior to spiracles, conspicuous by white shield at 



