BIO THE entomologist's record. 



appear especially liable to attacks of parasites. In a paper on " Leaf 

 Miners," read before the City of London Entomological and Natural 

 History Society, April 19th, 1904 {Trans., 1904, pp. 45 ct neq.), I have 

 called attention to these points as follows : — " Although larvfe which 

 burrow into stems, shoots and leaf-buds, may be hidden, and, there- 

 fore, more or less protected from their enemies, I do not believe the 

 leaf-mining habit was resorted to primarily for the purpose of 

 protection from living enemies. No doubt this protection has had a 

 good deal to do with the lines on which this habit has developed. The 

 leading idea was to ensure a moist condition for these minute creatures, 

 and after this moist condition was attained, the secondary idea of 

 protection began to work its modifying influences on the character of 

 the mines." 



Notes on Pyrameis atalanta. 



By CECIL FLOERSHEIM, B.A., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



1. Dates. In the summer of 1899 I had a fairly large experience 

 of the species in question, as I succeeded in collecting and rearing 

 some three hundred larvae, all of which I had found within a ten mile 

 radius of Guildford, in Surrey. On Julj^ 27th, I saw two imagines of 

 Pyranu'is atalanta laying their eggs as they flitted about the young nettles 

 bordering the banks of a small stream near Bramley. I collected 

 some of the ova, but unfortunately lost them. However, on August 

 2nd, I found some half-fed larvse, and one almost fullfed, in a neigh- 

 bouring field. These all pupated, and produced imagines before the 

 end of the month. From August 2nd till September 20th I continually 

 found larva^ in all stages of development, which I reared in large tin 

 biscuit-boxes kept indoors in a warmish room (it had a southern 

 aspect). On September 8th, I found no fewer than forty larvt^ on Ash 

 Green, near Aldershot. Some of these were in their earliest instars, 

 and though, during the last week in October, the resulting pupfe were 

 kept in a room with a fire in it, facing south, at Brighton, the last 

 imagines from these did not appear until November 5th. As a contrast 

 with these dates, I may mention that, on June 26th, 1900, 1 took a specimen 

 of the larva, three-quarters fed, near Bembridge, Isle of Wight, and 

 that, during the cold and wet summer of 1902, I found more than one 

 larva half-fed before the end of the first week in July. This was within 

 twenty miles of my collecting-ground of 1899. 



2. On the habit of the larva in biting through the seeded 

 NETTLE-HEADS WHEN ALMOST FULLFED. — I have read in text-books that 

 the larva does this in order to make a tent for itself in which to pupate; 

 but during all my experience I have never found one pupa in this kind 

 of tent, though often enough the fullfed or almost fullfed larva. I 

 have always found the pupa attached to the underside of a kind of 

 umbrella formed by drawing nettle-leaves together, and quite open 

 beneath. It is obvious that the imago could never escape from the 

 completely-closed refuge of the larva in the nettle-head. On February 

 4th, 1903, whilst on a visit to Malta, I found some dozen of the larvae 

 feeding on nettles near the gardens of S. Antonio in that island. 

 The Maltese nettle on which I found them was of a coarser, taller kind 

 than our I 'rtica liioica, with larger, glossier, and more fleshy leaves. 

 It, of course, does not run to seed in February, and, though some of 



