42 [February, 



canthus ; while the single long bristle situated on the side of the frontal portion of 

 the head is nearer to the genal spines, and the pronotal comb consists of twenty-two 

 teeth instead of fourteen, the most ventral spines being small in both species. 



Only the ? of this species is known. A single specimen was 

 taken from a Bank Vole {Hypudceus gJareolus) at Lyndhurst in the 

 New Forest by Mr. F. J. Cox, in December, 1900. Some years since 

 another example (also a $ ) was taken from the same host by Mr. 

 Greorge Tate at Lyndhurst, but was unfortunately destroyed before it 

 had been described. 



148, Piccadilly, W. : 



December, 1906. 



Meloe rugosus at Broadxtairs and Margate. — I have again met with this species 

 both in spring and autumn — on the former occasion in a cutting in the cliff near 

 Margate, in company with M. cicatricosus, and on the latter in the old locality on 

 the road between Broadstairs and St. Peter's. I suppose there can be no doubt 

 that it Iiibernates, as a rule, probably, without leaving the burrow of the bee in 

 which it has passed the earlier stages of its existence. — Theodore Wood, The 

 Vicai-age, Ljford Road, Wandsworth Common : October 22nd, 1906. 



Is Scoparia duhitalis a moss or a root feeder ? — Until comparatively recently 

 all the larvae of this genus were supposed to feed on moss or lichens only, but thanks 

 to Dr. Wood (Ent. Mo. Mag., sxv, p. 126) we now know that one of them (cembrai) 

 is entirely a root feeder. Little or nothing seems to be known about the laiva of 

 dubUalis, common as the imago is in many places. Mr. Eankes, to whom I recently 

 wrote for information, tells me that he knows practically nothing of the larva or its 

 habits. Some years ago he confined ? $ in pots containing sorrel roots, moss, &c., 

 but all to no purpose. It is true that Leech (" British Pyralides "), quoting Hart- 

 mann, says the larva feeds on moss and lichen growing on tree trunks in March and 

 April, and Meyrick (" Handbook," p. 423), says " larva on mosses, iii, iv." Many 

 years ago Machin (Entom., viii, 81) records the breeding of a specimen of the var. 

 ingratella from sori'el roots dug up in Folkestone Warren when searching for Tro- 

 chilium chrysidiforme Iarva3, and he again alludes to it in Ent. Mo. Mag., xxvi, 22. 

 This larva of course may have crept into the roots to spin up, as probably it would 

 be full fed at that period of the year. Now for my own experiences. In November, 

 1884, wishing to breed some Epiblema trigeminana, I dug up some roots of Senecio 

 jacobxie near Brentwood, shaking out all the earth and debris collected round the 

 base of the stems (which I cut off just above the root stocks), and replanted them 

 in fresh clean earth in flower pots; the trigeminana duly appeared in June, 1885, 

 and on the 14th of the same month two dubitalis (followed by another the next 

 day) appeared ! I am quite sure there was no moss for their larvae to feed upon, 

 and if moss feeders, it seems unlikely that they would have been full fed in 

 November, knowing that the larvae of those species which are known to us are not 

 full fed until the spring ; so, coupling Machin's experience with my own, it seems 



