1899.] 271 



the evidenoe of cases collected by Mr. Nelson M. Eichardson and myself in the Isles 

 of Portland and Purbeck, Dorset, respectively. I was previously avraro of the 

 occurrence of the species at Stonehenge, for the Eev. P. O. P. Cambridge sent me 

 for identification some cases from there a few years ago, when I could only tell him 

 that the same insect occurred on rocks on the Dorset coast, but its name was un- 

 known to me. My first acquaintance with this species, which was erroneously 

 recorded as " Solenobia triquetrella, Fisch.," by Mr. C. W. Dale, in Lep. Dors., 

 p. 47 (1886) (where he adds, " In the ' Lepidoptera of the Isle of Purbeck,' Xysma- 

 todoma melanella. Haw., was recorded in mistake for this species," though in reality 

 X. melanella was not recorded at all in the Lep. Purbeck !), and then by myself in 

 Lep. Purb., Suppl. i, p. 10 (1889), was made in June, 1885, when cases were found 

 by the Rev. C. R. Digby and myself on rocks and stones on the Purbeck coast. 

 Shortly afterwards we found the cases on rocks at Portland, but having never bred 

 the male imago from any cases collected, we did not attempt to work out the 

 identity of the insect, which, thanks to Mr. Tutt, has now been satisfactorily 

 established. Mr. Luff has met with the species plentifully in Guernsey, and both 

 sexes have recently been bred in England from cases collected by him there {vide 

 Ent. Rec, /. c). Lapidella has been included by recent authors in the genus 

 Talaporia, but Mr. Tutt has just announced, in Ent. Rec, xi, 191 (1899), that it 

 is wrongly placed there, and that he intends, in his next volume of the " British 

 Lepidoptera," to describe a new genus, under the name " Lnjffia " for it. I have, 

 therefore, adopted his proposed generic name, although no definition of the genus has 

 yet been published. — Eustace R. Bankes, The Close, Salisbury : Auff. 25th, 1899. 



Rapid completion of the metamorphoses of Camptogramma fluviata, Hh. — On 

 July 17th last a fine male specimen of Camptogramma fluviata was taken at electric 

 light in the pantry here by our butler, Mr. Gr. Skinner, and on the following night 

 he secured a female, also at light, in the same place. The latter obligingly began to 

 oviposit on July 19th, and, before she died on the 21st, had laid nearly 30 eggs, of 

 which the first hatched out on the 24th, and the last on the 25th. The larvffi fed 

 up rapidly on Polygonum aviculare, and by August 8th all (except four or five) had 

 already spun their flimsy loose silk cocoons among the stems and leaves of their 

 food-plant : the last larva spun up on the 10th, and pupated during the night of 

 the 11th. Twenty-seven fine moths (16 $ S ,1\ ? ?) duly emerged, the first on 

 August 17th, and the last on the 22nd. Thus only 29 days elapsed between the 

 laying, and only 24 days between the hatching, of the first egg and the appearance 

 of the first moth ! This seems to me a remarkably short space of time for any 

 insect of such a size a.e, fluviata to complete its metamorphoses, especially when the 

 brood was not " forced " in any way : on the contrary, the ova, larvre and pupae were 

 kept throughout either in, or on the windowsill of, a cool unheated room, facing 

 north, and away from the direct influence of the sunshine. It should, however, be 

 remembered that the weather during most of this period was very hot. 



Of the first sixteen moths that appeared, nine were males and seven were 

 females, from which it will be seen that the sexes came out simultaneously. My 

 notes show that the usual time of emergence is clearly between 7 and 9.30 p.m., 

 though a few emerged at about noon, and two came out between 11 p.m. and 

 7.30 a.m. 



