1SC5.] 91 



this insect aiipearod at least a month before it was to bo met with in its more 

 lowland haunts, in the lanes near Teignmouth ; and this year, whilst entomologizing 

 on the Lickey Hills, I think I have found the reason of this apparent anomaly. The 

 full-fed larvje were there abundant, on Vaccinnim myrtillus, on the 22nd of May, 

 when the larvae on nut and sallow, in the lanes around Birmingham, were only 

 half-grown. The first specimen of the perfect insect appeared from these bilberry- 

 fed larva3 on the 20th of June, and on the 26th of June they were coming out 

 abundantly, six specimens emerging on that day. In the Dartmoor Woods, the 

 moth swarms in the early part of June. I can detect no difference, either in the 

 larval or perfect states, from the nut or sallow-fed specimens. Curiously 

 enough, the bilberry-fed larvas of L. quercus on the Lickey stay longer in 

 this condition; and are, in fact, the var. callunce, if variety it is to be called. I am 

 trying the experiment of feeding a large brood of these on oak. — R. C. E. Jordan, 

 M.D., Edgbaston, Birmingham. 



Notes on Phorodesma bajularia. — Eggs laid by captured female in pill-box, 

 June 23rd, 1864 ; large in proportion to the size of the insect, oval, brownish, finely 

 reticulated : hatched July 11th. 



Food — oak. 



Larva at first brownish, mottled, hairy ; four bunches of green and white 

 atoms along each sub-dorsal line, and a bunch on anal segment, the gnawings of 

 oak. Until I had ascertained, by watching a young larva emerge from the egg, 

 that it came out naked, I could scarcely believe that these ornaments were not 

 part of itself, as every individual was so adorned, though apparently only just 

 hatched. The one of whose birth I was an eye-witness was immediately removed 

 to a separate box, and supplied with the petal of a rose, from which, in a few 

 minutes, it made up nine rosy " favours," and fastened them one by one, with 

 perfect regularity, upon its back. I then restored the rosy-favoured to its green- 

 and- white-favoured companions, and it very soon joined them in gnawing away at 

 the oak leaves, for nourishment now, having first satisfied the (shall I not say ?) 

 natural craving for dress. They fed on slowly till the cold weather began, when 

 they fixed themselves to the underside of the oak twigs, in a doubled-up posture, 

 and looked like little round tufts of vegetable debris. I kept them through the 

 winter in an arbour open to the air, and did not lose one. In April, I put into 

 their flower-pot some fresh twigs of oak, and split some of the buds. April 18th 

 they began to bore round holes in the buds that had not been split, and to clean 

 out the inside, seeming quite to despise my rough endeavours to help them. When 

 they were nearly full-fed, I made the following description of one of them, having 

 stripped off the tufts on one side for the purpose : — Body flattened, attenuated 

 towards head, which is of the same colour as the body, reddish-brown. Dorsal line 

 and wavy sub-dorsal line fuscous, a row of dark fuscous spots underneath the 

 spiracles. On each segment from five to nine (both inclusive), is a pair of dark 

 brown papillae, one outside each subdorsal line, with a dark spot on the apex, 

 furnished with a single hooked bristle (easily seen through a good glass), and also 

 a pail- on the twelfth segment, to which the gnawings are attached with silk. 

 Being very curious to know how this was done, I put the half-undressed individual 



