110 [October, 



larvae, which, however, perished, and it might be that their growth had been arrested 

 through illness. — O. STAtroiNGER (Translated from the Stettiner entomol. Zeitung, 

 1861, pp. 362, 363). 



[We have thought that the above translated exti-act from Drs. Staudinger and 

 Wocke'a "Journey in Finmark," although published so long ago, may not be without 

 interest at the present time. Mr. Meek sent, for our examination, a series of ten 

 Scotch examples of P. aljiina, and five from Finmark, received by him from Dr. 

 Staudinger. These latter are remarkably constant, and the gi'ound colour of 

 the fore-wings may be called ashy-grey. The Scotch examples, on the contrary, are 

 very variable, only one resembling the forms from Finmark ; no two are alike, and, 

 although a trace of the ashy ground colour usually remains, it is overpowered by 

 brown or blackish suffusion, always, however, leaving the characteristic orbicular and 

 reniform stigmata distinct, and sometimes filled in with reddish. One $ , in par- 

 ticular, is a very beautiful insect, having a blueish-grey ground with dark black 

 transverse lines, and longitudinal lines of black and blueish-grey, with a broad central 

 black suffusion. Altogether, these insects fully bear out the character for variability 

 that has caused Scotch Lejjido^tera to be so much desired by continental entomolo- 

 gists. — Eds.] 



Description of the larva of Herniinea grisealis. — It is with great satisfaction I 

 record my thanks to the Rev. Bernard Smith for his kindness in sending me this long 

 desired larva, and enabling me to complete my figures of the genus ; and, as no 

 account of the larva has appeared since 1867, when harhalis was, by mistake, de- 

 scribed for this species in No. 37 of " The Entomologist," at pages 223-4, I venture 

 to think the following description may perhaps be acceptable. 



The larva, found feeding on oak, I received September 15th, 1875, and for two 

 days it continued to feed, and then spun a thin web of whitish-grey silk, which hold 

 the upper surface of the leaf folded together at the ends, and the sides also drawn 

 together a little, so as to form a hollow in the middle of the leaf, wherein, on the 

 19th of September, it changed to a pupa, from which the moth, a male, came forth 

 on 5th of June, 1876. 



The full-grown larva is from one-half to five-eighths of an inch in length, the 

 globular head smaller than the second segment, and this a little less than the other 

 segments, which are in proportion moderately stout and cylindrical, the last segment 

 tapering a very little. As to colour, the head is darkish brown, reticulated with 

 darker, and without any gloss ; on the second segment is a small, semi-lunar, dark 

 brown, velvety plate, dorsally divided by a line of the general ground colour of the 

 rest of the body, which is a dingy pinkish-grey, faintly freckled with darker ; the 

 dorsal stripe not very visible till the 5th segment, where it commences, and continues 

 to be conspicuously broad and blackish, being rather widened in the middle of each 

 segment, and becoming narrower on the two last segments ; the sub-dorsal line is 

 darker than the ground colour, and a little broken in character ; the tubercular dots 

 small and blackish, each in a ring of unfreekled ground colour, and bearing a fine 

 hair ; a broken line of darkish freckles runs along the spiracular region ; the spiracles 

 themselves black and roundish ; the unfreekled belly a little paler than the back ; 

 the anterior legs tipped with black, the others with brown ; just before spinning, the 

 general colouring is more pink. • 



