102 the entomologist's record. 



burrow. Descriptions of the larva (op. cit., p. 475) and of the 

 pupa (pp. cit., p. 479) are given by Mr. Bankes and Dr. Chapman 

 respectively. 



Mr. Rothschild adds (in litt.) the following interesting details : 



(1) In all cases where I have found mines they face to the east. 



(2) The larvae mine in the stems and twigs of the tree or bush ; full- 

 fed larvae are sometimes in small twigs. (3) The young larvae are 

 also sometimes in the centre of the branch, though, no doubt for a 

 period of their existence, some specimens seem to abide between the 

 bark and the wood. I do not think this depends on them being quite 

 young larvae. (4) The larvae are very local. I have found a single 

 bush in a hedge, near Oundle, riddled, and several other bushes near, 

 in the same hedge, untouched. Isolated bushes at the edge of a wood, 

 or in a hedge, or on a hillside, are the best. If old mines be found, 

 new ones containing larva? are generally in the same bush. The 

 majority of mines containing fullfed larvae have the cap, which also 

 appears to be carefully constructed. Young larvae usually lack this, a 

 kind of swelling of the bark replacing it. 



We hear from Mr. Ovenden that he has already detected the larva 

 in the Strood district, Mr. Reid has been exceptionally successful at 

 Feering Bury, and one feels no doubt that the species is widely dis- 

 tributed throughout the country, wherever Viburnum lantana or V. 

 opnlus occurs at all freely. 



Larval habits of Trochilium andrenaeforme. 



By PERCY C. REID. 



I have spent several most interesting days lately searching for this 

 larva, but I find little to add to Mr. Eustace Bankes' very complete 

 account in the Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1906, pp. 474 et seq. 



At the present date (April 1st) the larvae vary immensely in size. 

 Some are evidently nearly fullfed, though still feeding, others are very 

 small, evidently in their first year, and some of them have not yet 

 commenced to bore into the wood. 



Where the ovum is placed I do not know, but, on hatching, the 

 young larva bores into the bark, and commences to eat out a circular 

 patch of the inner bark down to the solid wood, leaving only a 

 thin layer of the outer bark. It also, apparently, nearly cuts through 

 this thin layer round the circumference of its circular feeding patch. 



I fancy that the larva does not, unless in very exceptional cases (of 

 which I think I have only seen two), require more food until after the 

 first winter than is supplied by the inner bark of the patch in which 

 it is feeding, but, in the spring, when nearly a year old, it begins to 

 bore into the solid wood, and, having reached the pith, mines along it 

 in either an upwards or a downwards direction. About nine out of 

 every ten seem to mine upwards. 



The Hon. N. C. Rothschild in his paper calls attention to the 

 peculiar circular cap with which the orifice of the mine is surmounted, 

 and remarks that " the construction of the cap appears difficult of 

 explanation," but, really, it seems to me that the feeding-habits of 

 the young larva supply the explanation, for, in reality, this cap is 

 merely the thin surface of the bark of the circular patch, where the 



