1880. J 189 



IVOTES ON BRITISH TORTRICJES. 



BT C. G. BARRETT. 



{Continued from vol. xv,p. 249). 



Antithesia fostremana, Z. This beautiful species was discoYered, 

 as already recorded (vol. xv, p. 14), by Mr. J. B. Hodgkinson iu 

 Westmoreland, and I am indebted to him for a full grown larva, of 

 which it may be well to give a description : cylindrical, plump, rather 

 wrinkled, colour pale primrose-yellow, spots of the same colour, raised 

 and shining, and with minute hairs, head and dorsal plate shining 

 black, anal plate small, brown. 



In a stem of the wild balsam {Impaiiens noli-me-tangere) , feeding 

 on the cellular substance, and hollowing the lower part of the stem 

 quite out down to the root, afterwards constructing a wall of silk and 

 excrement across the upper part of the burrow, and living below, 

 moving actively up and down the chamber thus formed. Full fed in 

 the middle of September. Apparently it would have remained in this 

 chamber until spring, but my specimen was destroyed by mould in the- 

 "\s inter. Mr. Hodgkinson, however, rears them from the old stems in 

 June. 



Probably the larva varies slightly in colour according to age, for 

 von Heyden describes it (most likely from a younger larva) : " thick, 

 " nearly of equal breadth, rather flattened, shining, dirty greenish (like 

 " the inside of the stem of the food-plant), with flat shining little 

 " warts, each bearing a short hair ; head little narrower than the 

 " thoracic segments, shining black-brown ; thoracic plate shining black- 

 " brown, with the front edge and a faint central line greenish. In 

 '■ August in the stems near the roots of Impatiens noli-me-tangerey 

 Kaltenbach says that it feeds in the stem in the autumn, and after- 

 wards goes lower into the root, hut leaves the plant when full fed. 



Antithesia marginana, Haw. {ohlongana, Haw.). A sort of mystery 

 has long hung over the economy of this species, which is, I hope, now 

 cleared up. 



The -larva is described by Guenee as feeding in seed-heads of 

 Dipsacus, and Heinemann says in seeds of Dipsacus sylvestris. This 

 has been repeatedly confirmed ; Dr. Wood says : " I breed it commonly 

 " from teazle-heads collected in the woods, and the specimens are 

 " always finer than those I meet with in the fields." Lord Walsingham 

 says : " bred from teazle, hut also taken where there is no teazle ;" and 

 herein was the difficulty : there was no doubt about it sometimes 

 feeding in teazle-heads, but most emphatically was there no doubt of 



