170 



[Having received, through my friend Mr. Kii'by, a packet of small stones covered 

 with very minute white objects and acari, sent, accompanied by a letter from 

 Mr. Weatherhead, of Leicester, T at once forwarded them for identification to 

 Professor Westwood, who has, in the following notes, most obligingly complied 

 with my request for information respecting tliem. — H. G. Knaqgs.] 



Notes on Tromhidium lapidum. — The minute white objects on the stones are 

 the eggs of the mite Tromhidium (Tetranychus) loupidum, first figured by Hammer 

 in Hermann's Memoire Apterologique, (pi. 7, fig. 7-8,) with the eggs which were 

 discovered in similar situations. Hammer's correspondent found with the eggs 

 minute red-coloured six-legged mites which had been hatched from the eggs, and 

 which ran very quickly. Accompanying these mites (with six legs) were always 

 found others, two or three times larger, of a brown colour, and with eight legs, 

 but these latter wanted the long setw at the end of the four anterior legs of the 

 small individuals; Hammer thought these constituted two distinct species and 

 that they were not varieties, difi"erent iu stage or sex, because no metamorphoses 

 had been noticed in these insects, and no individuals intermediate in size had 

 been observed. He also inclined to regard the so-called eggs, in consequence of 

 their comparatively large size to that of the insects, as a kind of crysalid enclosing 

 the mite in a sort of nymph state. 



From what has since been observed of the changes of these mites, however, 

 there can be no doubt that the large specimens are full-grown individuals which 

 had previously borne the appearance of the smaller ones. All this is the more 

 necessary to be explained, because, in his note, Mr. Weatherhead states that the 

 eight-legged mites were produced from the eggs. This I believe must be a 

 mistake. Unfortunately I cannot make out the number of legs, the speciaiens 

 in the small phial having been so battered by the particles of stone, that some of 

 the legs may have been, as some certainly have been, detached in the journey 

 from shaking about. I suppose also that this species is six-legged in the larval 

 state. The eggs are beautiful microscopic objects. — J. O. Westwood, Oxford, 

 18(7i October, 1864. 



Notes on the capture and variation of Oelechia humeralis (Lyellella). — The cap- 

 ture of a fine series of this species here has afforded me an opportunity of noticing 

 a striking instance of variation in habit. At its old locality, the New Forest, it is 

 said to occur on oak trunks. My specimens, with one exception, which was tram- 

 pled out of heath in the spring, were all beaten from thatch. 



For a Gelechia it is rather a long-lived species, appearing from the beginning 

 of August to October, and again, after hybernation, at the end of February. 



This insect is singularly vai'iable, and seems to have hardly one constant cha- 

 racter. The deep black streak at the base of the costa of the fore-wing appears to 

 be the most so, but even that is almost obliterated in the unicolourous brown 

 variety. 



One form, which might be called the type, has the ground colour of the fore- 

 wings white, with the inner margin pale ochreous, the basal streak, two elongate 

 spots on the disc, and the two opposite dots black, and the hind margin dotted with 

 fuscous. 



