146 [June, 



A day on the Essex Marshes.— Mr. Whittle having kindly offered to show 

 me the way, I had the pleasure of going, on May 7th, and spending some time on 

 the salt marshes near Southend. My objects were twofold ; first, to gain some idea 

 of an aspect of nature with which I was not familiar ; and, secondly, to meet with 

 larvae of AgdistislBennettii and Psyche reticella. In both aspects I found a good 

 deal to interest me, though in both, no doubt, little that is not familiar to many 

 London Entomologists." 



I had seen the larvse of several European species of Agdistis, and wished to see 

 our British species. We met with sundry examples, of which I managed to find one 

 or two, though Mr. Whittle first showed me where and how they occurred ; they were 

 of several sizes, one large green one nearly full-grown, the smaller ones down to less 

 than quarter inch long, were of a rusty colour, probably corresponding to the colour 

 assumed during hibernation ; one was on the upper-side of a leaf, the rest all beneath 

 and generally down on, or close to, the petiole. These were leaves newly grown 

 this spring, no flower stems were yet pushing upwards. In regard to P. reticella, 

 we searched long without success, and I failed entirely to find a case. Mr. Whittle's 

 experience enabled him, however, to meet with several, which, with his usual gene- 

 rosity, he gave me. These were attached to green leaves of Sclerochloa maritima, 

 and were fixed for pupating, one conspicuously near to the top of the blade, the 

 others low down, and hidden by other portions of grass. The insect is said to be 

 attached to Spartina stricta ; this grass I did not recognise, but we looked over 

 several species of grass, and the one we (?) found it on was the Sclerochloa {Poa) 

 maritima. 



The specimens met with were all within a few square yards, and from wha 

 Mr. Whittle told me of his experience, there seems no doubt that the different 

 individuals of one brood often occur thus in a limited space, with large vacant areas. 

 This spot was quite free from the green conferva with which the species is sometimes 

 associated. Amongst the Sclerochloa we also found larvae of Cramhus salinellus ; 

 in the instance of one of these, whose tube happened to be captured with less than 

 the destruction that usually happens to them in the process of finding, I found 

 two portions of grass protruding from the tube. Examining these, I found them to 

 be loose portions of grass, with one end right down in the larval tube. The obvious 

 inference was that the larva bit off portions of the grass and drew them down into 

 the tube to be leisurely devoured. 



This was to me so novel a habit amongst our English Lepidoptera, that I en- 

 deavoured to repeat the observation, but without success, the process of finding the 

 tube of the larva always disarranging its domestic arrangements too profoundly to 

 make any observation possible. Mr. Whittle undertook to make some observations 

 on the larva in captivity. I hear from him under date May 11th : " Noticed yester- 

 day evening a quite fresh blade of grass loose in a tube of Crambtis ; I removed it 

 and placed the tube at a distance of some two inches from the grass, thinking that 

 another blade might be di-awn in, and that I might perhaps get a chance of watching 

 the process. Nothing fresh in the tubes this evening." 



This seems to me conclusive, but for one possibility, viz., the tubes are built 

 very upright, and are tolerably open at the top, so that it is just possible that the 

 larva bites through a blade of grass standing vertically just over the tube, and that 

 it then drops into the tube, accidentally, and without any definite intention on the 



