1896.] ^7n 



abandoned all attempts, just as the gypsy motli is now doing, and 

 that by disuse these organs became atrophied, and nothing now 

 remains but mere rudiments of the wings. A similar fate possibly 

 awaits the gypsy moth. Two of the species of Orgyia, figured on Plate 

 39, Figs. 14 and 17, are so-called natives of this country; while the 

 other. Fig. 11, is a native of Europe, and has been in this country 

 probably a comparatively short time, not long enough, at any rate, 

 for the new environment to produce any noticeable change. Since 

 the introduction of O. definita (Fig. 14) and O. leucostigma into this 

 country, whenever and in whatever way that may have happened, the 

 three species have been in an environment which has produced 

 marked changes in the males, while the wingless females have 

 probably changed far less. The two American species have changed 

 so little from each other that 0. definita, for a long time, was not 

 recognised as a distinct species. It may have branched off from the 

 stem of leucostigma at a comparatively recent date. 



If, in comparatively recent times, the gypsy moth made its way 

 into England, by the help of man or otherwise, may not the darker 

 colour of the foliage and other surroundings have rendered the female 

 moths more conspicuous objects to their enemies, so that, "in the 

 struggle for existence," this species was exterminated before it had 

 time to take on the darker colours, as may have been the case with the 

 British Tortricids? It may be thought that the warm, damp climate 

 of England would favour fungoid plants which are destructive to insect 

 life ; but, if this caused the extermination of the gypsy moth in 

 England, why has it not also caused the extermination of numerous 

 other species with more or less similar larval habits ? If any of the 

 above conditions caused the extinction of this moth in England, we 

 have little to hope for in America, since so very little of our territory 

 has any such climatic conditions as England. 



ON THE HABITS OP APHOMIA SOCIELLA. 



BY F, W. L. SLADEN (with Notes by C. G. BARRETT, P.E.S.). 



I have had a good deal of trouble in my humble bees' nests with 

 this moth. In 1893 it got access to some nests which I kept for ob- 

 servation in the walls of an outhouse, and in the following year, I 

 having failed to destroy all the cocoons in the winter, an enormous 

 brood was produced, destroying all the nests I had there. It will 

 attack the nests of all the Bomhi, but it is singular that it never 

 thriveain those of one of the commonest species in this neighbour- 



