3S LJuly, 



darker Umn the dorsal area, being a pinkish-brown shade ; extending throughout its 

 entire length is a broad stripe of still darker brown, and within this stripe is a double 

 central yellow line. On segments 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12 is a double series of large 

 black marks placed within the broad central stripe, but outside, and on each side the 

 double yellow inner line : pro-legs brown on the outside, this colour being very notice- 

 able on the anal claspers. 



The pupa is about five-eighths of an inch long, smooth, the thorax and abdominal 

 segments polished, the wing-cases duller. It is uniform and cylindrical, but sharply 

 attenuated towards the anal point. Colour almost uniformly bright brown, the anal 

 point, segmental divisions, and eye-cases darker. The first imago emerged July 26tli. 

 — Geo. T. Porritt, Highroyd House, Huddersfield : June Uh, 1878. 



Description of the larva of Crambus contaminellaa. — Towards tlie end of May, 

 1877, while turning over a stone on muddy earth near a sea-bank, I chanced to find 

 a small larva, which I brought home together with part of a little rigid tuft of grass 

 that was growing close to the stone. The larva was evidently a Cramius of a species 

 I had not before seen, and seemed near moulting ; a few days later, having accom- 

 plished its moult within a slight web it had spun around itself and attached to the 

 grass, it began to feed well on the grass, and to fashion its dwelling with more silk 

 into a complete tubular form, and to cover it with frass. 



After watching its progress a little, it was not very difiicult to find a few more, 

 the only real difficulty seemed to consist in finding stones in similar places not already 

 tenanted by ants or other predaceous creatures. However, on the 11th of June fol- 

 lowing, I fell in with an occasional stone or two that rested on or close to small tufts 

 of Poa maritima and Borreri, which were, so to say, tenanted by one of these larvae, 

 •and in one instance by two of them. When these stones were turned over the tubular 

 gallery, though of no great length, was readily seen attached to tlie lower whitish 

 sheaths of the grass towards the roots, being conspicuous, however small, by its co- 

 vering of fine greenish frass, or frass and fine grains of earth together, or else partly 

 spun against the stone itself, the sudden removal of which tore open the gallery and 

 the surprised larva dropped out. 



These larvse throve very well in confinement on growing tufts of the same species 

 of grass planted in a pot, with some of the muddy soil, and surrounded with a few 

 small stones, amongst which they constructed their galleries, and when full-fed con- 

 verted them into very tough cocoons smoothly lined with brownish-grey silk, and 

 externally coated with fine earth and frass. 



The moths, and a couple of ichneumons, were bred from July 17th to August 7th. 



This season I have again found a few of the larvae, and have been able to verify 

 and extend last year's observations, so that I can now say in early spring the larva 

 is not more than three-sixteenths of an inch long, the body of an earthy reddish-brown 

 with darker bvown head, the spots and plates of the same colour as the body but 

 contrasting by their gloss alone. After each moult the colour becomes greyer as they 

 advance in growth, and when full grown the larva measures a little more than three- 

 fourths of an inch in length, and is moderately slender, yet the segments have a cer- 

 tain characteristic plumpness in detail from their being well defined, and each 

 sub-divided with a deep transverse wrinkle between the trapezoidal spots of the back ; 

 the rather I'ounded head is a trifle less than the second segment, which is long in 



