184 [3nne, 



blackish when drj, behind it in its burrow, wliich is rather sparingly lined with 

 white silk. When moving, or when beino; moved, about, the larva always emits a 

 silken thread : unless seeking for fresh food, it lives quietly in concealment in the 

 shoot until full-fed, when it wanders about in search of a suitable place for pupation, 

 but if extracted from its burrow, it becomes very restless, roaming about ceaselessly 

 at a moderate pace. The power of contracting its segments, and thus reducing its 

 length to a minimum, is developed to a most remarkable degree. Some of the larv.-p 

 made their cocoons among the leaves of the spun-up shoots,* lying prone, whilst the 

 rest constructed them between the leaves and either the glass sides of llie jar or llie 

 piece of blotting-paper at the bottom of the jar, or else between the blotting-paper 

 and the glass sides, or bottom, of (he jnr. All, however, showed a most marked 

 partiality for a very " tight place," invariably spinning their eoenons between two 

 surfaces that were pressing against one another. 



Nearly all the cocoons spun in 1901 (vvhfn the larvre were collected so late that 

 the bulk of the healthy ones had probably fed up and already left the shoots) pro- 

 duced ichneumon-flies, not yet identified, but those of last year yii'lded a long 

 and beautiful series of moths. 



Stranc^e tliou<,fli it may seem, the only English descriptions that T 

 can find of this larva, which has been known in Britain for the last 

 46 years, and frequently reared, are totally incorrect. Our earliest 

 notices of it occur in Ent. Wk. Int., 1856, pp. 133, 142, where the 

 late Messrs. W. Machin and E. O. Standish, respectively, state that 

 they have just bred a few imagines "from black larva> " found in 

 spun tops of Ep/Iohi/rm anr/itsfifoh'iim on Box Hill. Stainton, following 

 their lead, says in Ent. A.nn., 1857, p. 108, "The larva is black," and 

 in Matiual, ii, 398 (1859), " Larva blackish ;" while, lastly. Meyrick 

 in HB. Brit. Lep., 680 (1895), copies this latter remark verhafim. I 

 can only suppose thnt Messrs. Machin and Standish noticed, among 

 the shoots, the " black " larvae of some interloper— probably of Seri- 

 coris Jncunana,f whose blackish larvre loere aciually present in the 

 shoots of Epilohium nnr/iistifoUum that Mr. Jeffrey sent me —and 

 mistook them for the " Simon Pure." However this may be, I have, 

 in the course of the last nineteen months, had some 150 larvae of M. 

 conturhatella, Hb., under close and constant observation, but not one 

 has, in any skin, been darker in colour than dirty raw-umber, whilst 

 all have been crimsonish coral-red after their final moult. 



* The choice of such a .site wa.s, I am inclined to think, due to abn'o-mal conditions, and 

 would ravoly be luade in luituie. Treitschke, in Schm. Eur., ix (2). 87 (183.3;, .says that pnp.ation 

 takes place "between the leaves," but does not state whether bis observations were ni.ide on the 

 larvre in nature, or in confinement. 



t Since the above wa.s written. Mr. J. H. Dnnant, to whom 1 am also indebted for extracts 

 from the notices by Treitschke iuid Frey, has kindly sent me copies of some unpublished MS. 

 notes by Stainton, which purport to refer to the larva of M. conturOatella. These relate to one 

 batch from Box Hill, and two from the continent, iind in each case give tlie larva as being of 

 some sha(le of browu (which is true of M. conlurhatella before its final moult, as well as of .S. 

 Uicuuana in some of its foriiis), but his entries about one of the co:itinental consignments con- 

 clude with the noteworthy remark, "Two .species were reared, laverna conturbatella and 

 Sericoris lacunana." 



