200 [February, 



or anal tubercle is narrower but fully longer tban the preceding 

 Begment, it terminates in a bifid sbort spine, very similar though 

 smaller to that on the neck. Antero-laterally, are two (one on each 

 side) long (|-mm.) trowel-shaped spines, raised on a stout base and 

 directed slightly dorsally — but that as the last few segments are bent 

 forwards, these anal spines are after all directed backwards in the line 

 of the insect's body. This anal segment is rufous, the spines being 

 of the brown colour so common in Lepidopterous pupse. 



There are no parts of the perfect fly formed in the cephalic spines, 

 which remind me forcibly of the tusks of a walrus. Their use 

 is evidently to tear down the clay-stopping in front of the pupa, when 

 the time for its emergence approaches, for which the perfect fly has 

 no apparatus : they are, indeed, actual digging organs. Most Lepi- 

 doptera that have to force a way out of earth or wood, Sejjiahts, 

 Trochilium, &c., have a blunt wedge-like spine, but these all have the 

 way prepared for them by the larva. Our present subject has to force 

 a passage through the clay-filling placed by the bee in its burrows, and 

 to climb through six to ten inches of these burrows. The larva, as we 

 have seen, can make no preparations ; and, though many pupae have to 

 force their way through obstructions, this is the only one I know of 

 actually provided with mattock and shovel with which to do its own 

 navigating. 



Hereford : January, 1878. 



NATUEAL HISTOEY OF SCOPULA FERRUGALIS. 

 BY WILLIAM BUCKLEB. 



I have again to thank my good friend Mr. Wm. R. Jeffrey, of 

 Ashford, and this time for a twofold kindness ; he has enabled me to 

 identify a larva, which I figured but could not rear in 1867, and also 

 to give the economy of a species, which, common enough sometimes in 

 the imago, has, hitherto, remained undescribed in its preparatory 

 stages. 



The larva I had in 1867, was found on some sea-shore plant 

 gathered for another larva, and not detected at the time of gathering, 

 so I could not, at that time, follow up the search ; but on September 

 27th, 1876, Mr.- Jeffrey found exactly such another larva at Folkestone, 

 feeding on Eupatoriuin caniiahmum ; this became full fed and spun up 

 on October 7th ; not, as I expected, among its food plant, but at the top 

 of ita cage, which was protected with a double covering of grenadine 



