isrs,] 147 



has effected a permanent Bettlement in his lordship's woods. I am 

 indebted to his kindness for specimens, and for the opportunity of 

 recording this beautiful- little novelty. 



OrtliotcBiiia striana, Schiffermiller. — On the 19th of March last, 

 having an hour to spare, and a fern-scoop at hand, and being close to 

 a large field of old pasture abounding, in the summer, in Dicroramplice 

 and other Tortrices, I determined to devote the time to promiscuous 

 digging for root-feeding larvse. Accordingly, all manner of plants 

 were turned up — thistles, plantains, ragweed, knapweed, hawkbit, 

 hawkweed, everything that could boast a substantial root, even to the 

 common dandelion, and before long, to my great surprise, I found a 

 small larva burrowing into the skin of the root of the last-named and 

 most despised of plants, the common dandelion {lieontodon taraxacum) . 

 This larva was so small that I hoped it might produce Dicrorampha 

 sequana, and by digging up hundreds of dandelion roots on this and 

 a subsequent occasion, I succeeded in finding from a dozen to twenty 

 larvse. Most of them were placed in flower-pots in which bunches of 

 the dandelion plants dug up in the search were placed and tied over 

 with gauze, but that no chance of rearing them might be lost, I put 

 one larva into a tin bos with some bits of root, sufficient, as I supposed, 

 for it to feed up on, and it was no more visible until May 8th, when I 

 was astonished to find a plump active larva more than half an inch 

 long in the box, where, having hollowed out its stock of roots, it was 

 eagerly hunting for more. More were supplied, and it was placed in 

 a glass-covered gallipot, when it immediately burrowed into one of the 

 roots, proceeding to show a healthy appetite by the quantity of frass 

 extruded from one end, and by the end of May it was full-fed, and 

 had made a tough cocoon of earth and silk, not attached to the roots. 

 The idea of a Dicroramjylia had — from its size — long been given up, 

 and having no idea what was likely to be produced, it will readily be 

 understood that I was not gratified when, on opening the gallipot a 

 few days after, a dipterous parasite (TacJiina) flew out. However, the 

 dandelions in the flower-pots had not been thriving, and were indeed 

 dying one by one, and on June 30th, from one of them emerged the 

 first specimen of OrtJiofcenia striana. A dozen more appeared in the 

 course of a fortnight, some of them — the females especially — being of 

 very pretty reddish and pink varieties. 



The larva, when small, is of a dirty whitish colour, with a large, 

 dark grey, internal dorsal vessel, very visible, head light brown, plates 

 both very pale brown. At this time it feeds at the surface of the 

 dandelion root, burrowing under the skin, and protecting itself with 



