TROCHILIUM ANDREN.EFORME AS A BRITISH SPECIES. 101 



Trochilium andrenaeforme as a British species (mth /date). 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



The Hon. N. C. Rothschild, by discovering the habits of the larva 

 of this speeies in Britain, appears to have brought the possibility of 

 possessing specimens within the reach of most British lepidopterists. 



Neustetter, in July, 1896, found two newly-emerged specimens of 

 the species on a stem of guelder-rose (Viburnum opulus) in a garden at 

 Bleiberg, in Carinthia (Jahresb. Wien. tint. Ver., 1899, p. 88). In 

 November, 1905, the Hon. N. C. Rothschild discovered a larva mining 

 in a bush of V. lantana, at the edge of his garden, at Ashton Wold, in 

 Northamptonshire, the larva pupating in due course, and a fine 5 

 emerging on June 12th, 1906. In the meantime, in the winter of 

 1905-6, several old mines were observed in a hedge, in Surrey, from 

 which, later, McArthur obtained two specimens, neither of which, 

 however, produced imagines. In another part of Surrey, in 1906, 

 Rothschild found a mined stem, which contained at the time either a 

 fullfed larva or pupa, and from this a $ emerged on June 10th. 

 McArthur then found several larvae and pupae in a locality in Kent, 

 from which, however, only two imagines, a $ and ? , were reared, on 

 July 2nd and 6th respectively. Some of these larvae went on feeding 

 through the summer and continued into the autumn and winter, 

 showing that the larval stage occupied at least two years — from July 

 in one year, through the next, and until the June of the succeeding 

 year. In November, 1906, several mines were found in V. lantana, 

 and one in T'. opulus, at Tring, in Hertfordshire. 



In order to show that the mine is unlike that of any other iEgeriid 

 known, an excellent figure is given (Tram. Ent. Soc. Land., 1906, 

 pi. xxviii), which we have kindly been permitted to reproduce. The 

 larva makes one straight mine along the centre of the twig or stem 

 chosen ; the opening from the mine to the outside of the stem 

 (the opening from which the larval frass is extruded, and the insect 

 later emerges) is almost at right angles to the mine. This opening, 

 Rothschild says, is sometimes covered over with a cap, consisting of a 

 thin piece of bark, quite separate from the rest of the twig or stem, which 

 apparently remains on until the insect emerges ; others have no cap, 

 and it is possible that, in these, it has been dislodged; still others, 

 however, have an irregular piece of bark gnawed right out, leaving the 

 hole exposed, through which the frass of the living larva protrudes. 

 The stems in which they have been found have varied from half-an- 

 inch to two inches in diameter, and the larva sometimes leaves the 

 mine to make another. 



Bankes gives ('/'runs. Ent. S,,,-. Land., 1906, p. 474) an interesting 

 account of a larva that he saw at 7 a.m., on July 28th, 1906, outside 

 the stem, and which, being provided with a fresh stem of V. lantana 

 proceeded to gnaw an excavation in the bark and to build a circular, 

 blister-like chamber over itself, composed of fragments of bark and 

 gnawed wood woven together with white silk, the chamber bein<*, some 

 hours after, soft to the touch, projecting noticeably above the surface 

 of the surrounding bark, the larva being entirely concealed therein. 

 From here it started its burrow into the solid wood, tin cap as it were 

 remaining, in Bankes' opinion, as a protection to the inmate of the 

 May 15th, 1907. 



