1880.] 243 



attaching them together by any web. When fall-fed, leaving the 

 flowers to spin up among rubbish, where it remains uuchauged until 

 May or June, and, indeed, will sometimes leave its hibernaculum and 

 crawl about in the spring. The moths appeared fi'om the beginning 

 to the middle of July. 



It is not yet determined whether the slightly larger and much 

 more variable form which is found among Aster tripolium is a distinct 

 species ; but if larvae lately sent me by Mr. Machin should produce 

 it, I think its distinctness will be fully proved. These larvse agree 

 much more nearly with Gartner's description. 



Catoptria pupillana,Jj. Wilkinson says of this species — "that 

 "it flies among sea wormwood {Artemisia marifima),3ind that the larva 

 "feeds in the roots of that plant." 1 think this is a mistake. At 

 any rate, it does not appear to be so here, where the sea wormwood 

 has not a stem or root large enough conveniently to contain this larva. 

 Heinemann only says " among Artemisia.'^ 



Mr. Jeffrey wrote to me some years ago that he had taken it among 

 Artemisia ahsynthium near Scarborough, and I think this is its usual 

 food plant. 



The summer before last, I had collected a lot of stems of this 

 plant containing larvse of E^jhestia cinerosella, which were kept tied 

 down in large pots in the yard. The Ephestia larvae having spun up 

 in their burrows, all emerged duly in the pots ; but one day I was 

 startled to see on the fence close by a specimen of Catoptria pupillana, 

 evidently just emerged from the pupa, and, on subsequent days, I 

 found several more sitting about the yard, although not one emerged 

 within the pots. 



It was evident that the larvae had fed up in the wormwood stems, 

 and then that their natural restlessness had prompted them to force 

 their way out of the pots and spin up at large. This year, after much 

 trouble and search, I managed to determine the larva, and to induce it 

 to submit to necessary confinement. It is tolerably plump, naked, 

 with the segments ridged in front and rather deeply divided, colour 

 yellowish-white, a minute grey spot on each spiracle, head deeply lobed, 

 bright chestnut, jaws darker, dorsal plate light brown, anal plate yel- 

 lowish, all the legs of the colour of the body. I think, that when very 

 young it is more tinged with grey, from the colour of the intestinal 

 canal, but this description is correct, until it is nearly full grown. It 

 remains from October until March still lively, and evidently feeding, 

 but hardly growing larger, and then begins to show faint pinkish dorsal 



