1897.] 127 



in many of them visible. In this respect, among others, the three females labelled 

 triquetrella differ altogether. They are broader in shape, and the anal segment is 

 finished off by a broad triangular blackish plate, beyond which in neither instance is 

 the ovipositor visible ; moreover, there is apparently no such broad white downy patch 

 on the under-side of the abdomen, as in inconspicuella, and only a ftiint indication 

 in one of them of a ring of downy scales ; the head and attendant plate in these 

 are shining brown, and except that they are a shade larger, they agree in other 

 respects, as Dr. Chapman has pointed out, with $ inconspicuella. But when the 

 card upon which these three ? specimens are gummed was turned up, there appeared 

 upon its under-side this (quite unexpected) inscription, " Pentland Hills, ? ," and 

 upon examining the card upon which the accompanying cases are gummed, the same 

 inscription appeared, with the further information, " by Logan." All which shows, 

 or appears to show, that instead of the supposed triquetrella having occurred near 

 Manchester, they had, so far as these specimens were concerned, been obtained by 

 Mr. E. Logan, of Duddingstone, Edinburgh, on the Pentland Hills ! This was a 

 surprise — and a hint. I wrote at once to Mr. Wm. Evans, of Edinburgh, to whom 

 I am indebted for much of what I know of the Micro- Lepidoptera of the Forth 

 district, and begged him to turn his energies in this direction. Promptly and 

 repeatedly he searched rocky places and walls on the Pentlands until he found cases, 

 though but in small numbers, which he sent to me, accompanied by lichen and moss 

 scraped off the stone surface where they were found. I did what I could for them, 

 provided them with such fresh powdery lichen as could be obtained, kept the old 

 food as fresh as I could, even (knowing the tastes of some of their allies) put in dead 

 insects to tempt them to feed, but without success. One pupa protruded itself from 

 its case, but the moth would not, or could not, emerge, and so far the result in this 

 direction is failure. But I do not think that my friend will allow himself to be 

 beaten in one season. 



In the meantime Mr. A. H. Hamm, after much searching, had come upon a 

 colony of cases, evidently of this genus, in the Reading district. He says : " The 

 cases were found at the end of March, usually by searching at the foot of fences, but 

 a few upon pieces of dead wood, and even stones. Some of the larvse were fairly 

 lively, walking about my box, but the majority were evidently in pupa. The ? s 

 commenced to emerge in the first week in April, and continued to appear until about 

 the last week in that month. None came out in May. They commenced to deposit 

 eggs almost directly they emerged, and I considered the eggs large for so small an 

 insect. All duly hatched, the young larvse constructing a case almost immediately, 

 but I failed to induce them to feed." From the cases which he sent me also none 

 but females emerged (and ichneumons, of course), not one male. Some degree of 

 pleasurable excitement was caused in May by the appearance of a winged moth from 

 among these cases, but it proved to be only a female Xysmatodoma melanella, of 

 which the case is quite sufficiently like that of a Solenohia to be readily overlooked. 



With reference to the females last mentioned. Dr. Chapman writes me : " Mr. 

 Hamm has sent me specimens of a Solenohia of which he has only reared females, 

 which, however, he tells me were freely fertile. The case is of a form very distinct 

 from that of S. inconspicuella and (?) triquetrella. The pupa shell is distinctly 

 smaller than theirs, and the colour is less ruddy, but I can find no definite structural 

 difference. The $ has two more joints to the antennae than they have ; the tarsal 



