J^gg [December, 1879. 



The eggs Latched from 19tli to 21st of the moiitli, and the little 

 larvae were distributed over the potted plants, except two that were 

 confined with a few leaves for a couple of days as an experiment ; I 

 found one of these had taken possession of Heliantheimim, and the 

 other of Lotus ; in each instance the stem and leaves were spun 

 together with white silk, whereon minute specks of f rass were visible ; 

 they were then transferred to similar plants in the pots, where, through 

 September and October, I was interested in watching them and some 

 of the others that could be detected, but only on those plants, among 

 various surrounding growths ; the tiny ci'eatures extended their webs 

 higher and higher on the small shoots of their chosen sprays, and 

 quantities of frass lay about the earlier portions of web, until the 

 approach of winter, when I saw them no more, for in the following 

 spring their plants could not be found, probably killed by the larval 

 ravages, and the coarser vigorous plants choking them. I found 

 Mr. Jeffrey's experience with a few he had kept for himself corres- 

 ponded exactly with mine. 



Again, in 1878, towards the end of July, Mr. Jeffrey imprisoned 

 some female carnella, and their eggs were laid on leaves of HcUan- 

 themum and Origanum, and a single e^g on a blade of grass ; they 

 began to hatch on 7th of August, and most of them were placed on 

 good growing plants of Lotus corniculaius, while four or five were put 

 in another pot on a plant of Helianthemum vulgare ; signs of the larvae 

 were soon seen on the plants by leaflets spun together, and minute 

 specks of frass on the threads, becoming plainer through September 

 and October, when some of the leaves and stems were spun to bits of 

 stick, placed there to keep the sprays upright, and prevent their 

 straggling over the margins of the pots. 



The plants became very dry, and so remained through an unusually 

 severe winter and spring, until April, 1879, when a few fresh green 

 shoots of the Lotus, and, by chance, a few of Medicago lupuUna and 

 Trifolium repens appeared round the outside of the old dry portions 

 of the former plants ; but it was as late as the 15th of May when I 

 first found a larva had moved from its winter quarters, in the pot of 

 Helianthemum, where there also chanced to be growing a young clover 

 plant, of whose few leaves an unopened one arrested my attention to 

 two minute holes near the top ; on examination, a young cartiella 

 larva was within a web which had held the leaf folded together ; soon 

 after this another larva was found feeding on one of the leaves spun 

 against the Helianthemum, — facts pointing to a leguminous plant as 

 the proper food. On the same day Mr. Jeffrey examined two or three 



