58 the entomologist's record. 



Nonagria, Ochs. 



dissolnta, Tr., Gn., Stgr.(=neurlca, Hb., 659-61 (nee 381); =liessii, Bdv.). 

 var. arundineta, Schmidt. 



which means that we must make the black form the type, and 

 arundineta a variety. This is one of those curious instances in which 

 the type is rarer than the variety. 



I should like now to make a few remarks on the life-history 

 of arundineta. I find that the only stage in which this insect 

 has not been described is the egg-stage. Egg. — The eggs that 

 are photographed (pi. ii., figs. 11-12) were laid between August 9th 

 and 20th, within the sheathing leaf of a dead reed stem, 

 about half-way down, in parallel rows, about 50-60 in a batch. 

 They were like a flattened sphere, or coin-shaped, sides straight, 

 with parallel grooves, of a dirty white colour and marked 

 with numerous brownish specks. When first laid they are white, 

 but get rather darker after a few days. They are covered with 

 a glutinous substance giving them a shiny appearance. Breadth 

 •794mm. They go over the winter, and, on April 26th, I noticed 

 they began to turn a mauve colour, whilst, on April 28th, the first 

 larva appeared. Larva. — It was 3mm . long, of a shiny dirty white colour ; 

 head black, and with a blackish plate on the prothoracic and anal 

 segments, and under a strong lens the pinkish line down its back was 

 distinctly visible. The larvae were very restless and wandered all over 

 the place. I put them on a reed leaf, when they walked down it to the 

 stem, and, when they arrived at the base of the leaf, they began to gnaw 

 into the stem. I have never found more than one in a stem, and it 

 will continue to live in the same reed, if the latter is a large one, 

 feeding on the inner cuticle, working upwards, and filling the inside 

 with frass, until ready to pupate, when it bites a hole in the stem 

 and crawls downwards. They never pupate in a living reed but 

 always enter an old one or a short broken bit of reed. The larva 

 enters the latter by eating a hole in the stem, generally a little 

 above a joint and right at the base of the reed stem, and makes 

 the hole for the moth to emerge from right on the joint at the 

 surface of the reed bed, gnawing right through the stem and only leaving 

 the thinnest skin over the hole. The larva then crawls upwards till it 

 comes to the next joint, and here it pupates, head downwards. I 

 cannot help thinking that there must be some mistake in Buckler's 

 account, as given by Barrett, of the larvse sent him by Lord Walsingham. 

 He says: "May to the beginning of July in the stem of the 

 common reed, feeding in the upper green portions where they are 

 sheathed with green leaves ; here a space is eaten out, of a foot in 

 length, and a small circular hole is cut in the side." This sounds more 

 like the larva of Calamia phragmitidis, unless the larva? were about to 

 pupate and had eaten a hole to leave the stem by. Dr. F. D. Wheeler 

 says " this larva feeds also low down in the stems of the large reeds, 

 and always seems too slender for its home," which is much nearer 

 the mark. There is a description and figure of the pupa in Wilde, 

 so I do not propose to deal with it. As regards the imagines, they 

 generally begin to appear about July 24th, and continue to do so till 

 about August 15th-20th. The males hatch just about 6 o'clock in the 

 evening and the females rather later. At dark the males run up and 

 down the reeds searching for the females, and I have often seen a male 



