1901] 123 



Longtli, •!• — 5 nun. Greatest brt'adtli, 0'9 — 1"2 mm. Slemli'i' and alleniiiilL'il 

 in slia|>e, broadest across the postcM'ior part of the mesotliorax, and tapering tlionce 

 somewliat towards the head, which is rather narrower than the protliorax, and 

 decidedly towards the anal extremity. Shell very smooth and highly polished, 

 orange-ochraceous, with the head parts conspicuously blackish-brown as a rule, 

 though sometimes brown, and occasionally concolorous with the rest of the shell. 

 Cases of appendages clearly defined, and soldered to the main shell throughout 

 their entire length ; those of the antennae, wings, and hind legs are very long, their 

 extremities reaching to the end of the eighth abdominal segment, that is, nearly to 

 the end of the pupa-shell. A powerful lens shows a few minute, straight, pale hairs, 

 or bristlei?, on the dorsal surface of the eighth and ninth abdominal segments, but 

 the anal extremity itself is destitute of anal armature. 



Reference to a detailed description of the larvn, made for my 

 own use in March last, is needless, Lord Walsingham having, since 

 then, published a description of it, as already stated. I will, therefore, 

 only mention that I was much struck by the remarkable power shown 

 by the larva (which, when moved about, lets out a strong silken thread) 

 of reducing its length to a minimum by contracting together all its 

 segments, including the head, which is retractile into the prothorax. 



Douglas, in Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., N.S., i, G7 (1850), and 

 Stainton, in Tns. Brit. Lep. Tin., 128 (1854), mention the Isle of 

 Wight as the only known British locality for littordla, but in the 

 Manual, ii, 341 (1859). Stainton gives it as also occurring, and that 

 commorly, at Birkenhead, to which record Meyrick's entry of Cheshire 

 as a locality for it, in HB. Br. Ficp., 579, clearly refers. I shall be 

 grateful to any one who can tell me whether these Birkenhead speci- 

 mens were genuine lifforcUa, who captured them, and where they are 

 now located. In Ent. Wk. Tnt., ii, 157 (1857), J. B. Hodgkinson 

 records the capture by himself of lUtoreJln "in this neighbourhood," 

 i.e., near Preston, where he was then living, and adds that, if he is 

 rightly informed, the Tsle of Wight and Ireland are the only localities 

 where the insect has ])reviously been taken. I believe that his infor- 

 mation about Ireland must have been unreliable, for I have never 

 heard or seen any record of its occurrence there, nor is it included in 

 Mr. W. F. de Vismes Kane's Catalngue of the Lepidoptera of 

 Ireland, just concluded in the " Entomologist ; " and as regards 

 Hodgkinson's reputed ca|)ture at Preston, I imagine that, as not 

 unfrequently was the case, his identification was incorrect. At any 

 rate, I fancy that nothing more was ever heard of the occurrence of 

 littorella at Preston, and the facts remain that Stainton did not give 

 Preston as a locality for it in the Manual, of which the part containing 

 the notice of it was not |)ublished till two years after Hodgkinson's 



