1878 ] 109 



Zeller considers it to be only a variety of hyrciniana, and he further writes me word 

 that this is the general opinion of continental entomologists ; bnt, from what follows, 

 there can be no longer any donbt that it is a good species, and abundantly distinct 

 from hyrciniana. 



The perfect insect occurs here about midsummer among silver firs, and on these 

 same trees in the autumn are to be found little larvffi which it would seem natural 

 to infer are the progeny of the moths ; but, inasmuch as they are very subject to 

 the attacks of ichneumons and hibernate full-fed, the difficulty has been to prove 

 the connection, and for three seasons I have tried in vain to rear them. 



Under these circumstances, I have attempted the problem in another direction, 

 and this summer enclosed a female moth in a bottle with a small sprig of silver fir. 

 After a time, the spi-ay became dry and mouldy, and was put aside as a failure. How- 

 ever, picking up the bottle by chance one day at the end of August, I saw that some 

 larvae had been at work after tlie manner of those I had been so long familiar with 

 on the fir trees, and as the precaution had been taken to gather the spray from an 

 isolated tree, on which neither the moth nor larva had ever been seen, and upwards 

 of a mile from the locality of the insect, there could be no other conclusion but that 

 tliey were the produce of the moth that had been imprisoned, and that at last the 

 problem had been solved. 



Distinctana differs from hyrciniana far more in the larval than in the perfect 

 state. First, as to the difference in habits of the two larvce. The food plant of 

 hyrciniana is spruce ; that of didinctana silver fir. The former feeds more or less 

 through the winter ; the latter becomes full fed in the autumn, though it does not 

 pupate till the spring. Both feed within the needles of their respective trees, 

 drawing several of them together with silk ; but whereas hyrciniana does this in a 

 loose and untidy manner, with no approach to the formation of a chamber, and 

 makes use of a brown coloured silk in which much frass gets entangled, distinctana, 

 on the other hand, draws the needles neatly and closely together, forming a small 

 and compact chamber, quite free of frass inside and out, and with silk of a whitish 

 colour. I may observe, it would be easy to overlook the larva of distinctana, and 

 throw away one of its domiciles as untenanted, for the larva does not reside in the 

 chamber (well adapted and even designed as it would seem for this purpose), but 

 invariably within one or other of the excavated needles. 



Second, as to the difference of the larvae themselves. Distinctana: colour a 

 very pale green, semi-transparent; head and plate on 2nd segment pale amber 

 coloured ; legs green ; the usual spots are brown, and there is a dark dorsal line 

 but no other markings. Hyrciniana : colour at first green, but darker in tint and 

 less transparent than in distinctana ; head and plate on 2nd segment black ; le^s 

 black ; dorsal line not apparent, subdorsal line distinct and rather broad, reddish- 

 grey ; no other markings. When full fed the colom- changes to a pale pink, and the 

 head becomes brown. — John H. Wood, Tadcaster : Septemler, 1878. 



[The " silver fir " is Abies picea. — Eds.] 



Mr. Moore s " Revision of the Lithosiidx." — In the first part of the Zoological 

 Society's Proceedings for the present year (pp. 3 — 36) Mr. F. Moore, of tlie India 

 Museum, has published " A Eevision of certain genera of European and Asiatic 

 Lithosiidx, with characteristics of new genera and species." As it is probable that 



