1911.] 29 



green, liibernatiug in them, probably moving from one to another, and 

 feeding up within when the last infested cone is of full size ; " biit 

 although, on page 417, he states that " the habits of the larvae were 

 carefully worked out in Herefordshire by Dr. J. H. Wood and Mr. 

 Buckler," his account does not agree with their experience. Barrett 

 makes the larvae live as such for about nine months, hibernate 

 (obviously not full-fed) in a cone, and feed up in the spring, whereas 

 the lai-vse that have yielded imagines to Dr. Wood and others have, as 

 a rule, hibernated full-fed in silken domiciles, after forsaking the 

 cones. 



In Lep. Brit. IsL, ix, 417 (1904), Barrett, probably with Atmore's 

 and Buckler's descriptions of the groixnd-colours in his mind, expresses 

 the opinion that, in Ent. Mo. Mag., xxii, 52 (1885), Eagonot "trans- 

 posed the larvae " of abietella and splendideUa, but I cannot endorse 

 his conclusion, which would still leave marked differences of descrip- 

 tion unexplained. Eagonot's short descriptions (I.e.) are apparently 

 abridged from those of Constant and Duponchel respectively, which 

 are quoted in the Eomauoff Memoires, vii, pp. 198-199, 196 (1893), 

 and these authors' notes on the larval habits clearly point to abietella 

 being the subject of Constant's notice, and splendidella that of 

 Duponchel' s contribution, thus absolving Eagonot of any transposi- 

 tion. I confess, how^ever, that I am quite unable to reconcile 

 Constant's description of the larva of abietella with that of Atmore, 

 or Duponchel's description of the larva of splendidella with that of 

 Buckler, though the identity of the moths bred by Atmore and 

 Buckler seems unquestionable. In the Eom. Mem., vii, 199, Eagonot 

 quotes Atmore's description of the larva in his notice of abietella, but 

 unfortunately his notice of splendidella, although England is men- 

 tioned therein as a known locality, does not include any of Buckler's 

 descriptions of the larva, or of his notes thereon, all of which were 

 published in full by Stainton in the Ent. Mo. Mag., xxiv, 269-272 

 (1888), only tw^o mouths after the appearance of Atmore's paper which 

 Eagonot quotes ! Stainton headed his contribution, " On the Knot- 

 horn larva which infests the cones of spruce fir," but said in his 

 introductory remarks, " The perfect insects bred by Dr. Wood certainly 

 seem to be referable to the splendidella, H.-S. (the name now adopted 

 by M. Eagonot, Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. xxiv, p. 224, for the sylvestrella* oi 

 his Eevision, Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. xxii, p. 52) ; " and Eagonot could 



• In Rom. M(5m. vii, pp. 195, 198(1893), Ragonot showed that sylvestrella, Rag., of Ent. Mo. 

 Mag., xxii, 52 (1885), is identical with splendidella, H.-S., but that the true si/lvestrelta, Rtzb., is 

 synonymous with abietella, Fb. — E. R. B. 



