1902.] 231 



NOTES ON THE LARViE OF EUPITEECIA DODONEATA. 

 BY GBRVASE P. MATHEW, Paymaster-in-Chief, Royal Navy, F.L.S., P.E.S. 



On May 10th, 1891, and after, I took several Eupithecia dodoneata 

 at rest on some match-board palings surrounding private grounds in 

 this neighbourhood. It was a species I had not met with before, and 

 not being quite certain what they were I sent some of them to Mr. 

 Barrett, who kindly furnished me with their correct name, and advised 

 me to look for their larvae upon oak and whitethorn. However, there 

 was no oak (robur) growing in the grounds, and very little whitethorn ; 

 but there were some whitethorn hedges not far off, where I thought the 

 moths might have been bred. In the grounds there were the usual 

 ornamental shrubs, together with several fine old evergreen oak trees 

 (ilex), sycamores, poplars, spruce firs, ash, &c. In 1S95 the moths 

 did not appear until May 24th, and after, but I did not see as many 

 as in the previous year. In 1896 I did not see any. During 1897-8 

 I was abroad. In 1S99 I did not see one. In 1900 I took several, 

 the first on May 22nd. None were met with in 1901. This year I 

 noticed the first on May 30th. As the moths so far had only been 

 found on these particular palings, and were never seen on other 

 palings not far off and adjacent to the whitethorn hedges, I had 

 come to the conclusion that the larvae must feed on something else 

 besides oak and whitethorn, so I obtained permission to collect in the 

 private grounds, and on May 30th, the first day I saw one on the 

 outside palings, I took twenty-seven, a few on the palings inside, but 

 most on the ilex trees, and a few of them were already worn, showing 

 that they had been out for some time. Between this date and June 

 12th I took about a hundred, and could have obtained double the 

 number had I wished. Nearly all these were found on the ilex trees, 

 some of them sitting low down on the trunks, just emerged, with 

 their wings limp over their backs, and hardly grown, though the 

 greater number were usually high up on the branches, and had to be 

 taken in a net as they flew off. I had now no doubt, and had long 

 suspected that ilex was the food of the larvae in this particular 

 locality. Two or three of the worn females were enclosed in a glass 

 cylinder, with small twigs of ilex, whereon a number of eggs were 

 soon deposited among the clusters of flower buds. These at first 

 were of a pale straw colour, but changed to a bright orange in a day 

 or two, and hatched in about ten days. The larvae feed almost exclu- 

 sively upon the flower-buds and bloom, and when the latter wither 



