is7f..] 209 



form, and again I collected and sent round an enormous luimber of cases (the cases 

 this season being in -wonderful profusion, hundreds of specimens might have been 

 taken on a space of a few inches square) ; but again, to our great disgust, nothing 

 but the apterous form could be bred. This went on till 1869 ; and my correspondents, 

 one after the other, gave up the problem. I may add hero that among the large 

 number of cases I had bred myself, or had sent to correspondents, not a single example 

 of melanella had ever occurred. 



In 18G9 the change came : nearly all the cases from the trees, from which I had 

 been in the habit of breeding pomonce, now produced melanella, the porportion of 

 winged forms to apterous being, I think, about ten to two. I at once joyfully wrote 

 off to Mr. Doubleday that I had at last bred the male form of pomonce, but added 

 that it was strangely like melanella as described in Mr. Stainton's Manual. Mr. 

 Doubleday regretted he had no melanella he could send me for comparison, but he 

 lent me a German work iu which melanella and cases were figured, and I found 

 my surmise was correct, and that my winged forms were melanella. 



In 1870, 1 again collected a lot of cases, and the proportion of 1869 was reversed ; 

 and I bred a very large proportion of apterous forms, the winged species being few 

 and far between. In 1871, my cases produced only apterous forms, not a single winged 

 example appearing. In 1872, from several causes, I did not collect any cases. 



Last year my friend, Mr. W. H. Grigg, and myself again collected a large number 

 of cases, many of the fully-grown ones having the truncated appearance that Mr. 

 Boyd describes as peculiar to melanella. We both bred the apterous form fi-eely, and 

 nothing else. Thus the matter stands. Mr. Eoyd has met with both species, if 

 species they are, feeding together ; and it will be interesting to learn if the cases are 

 of equal distribution everywhere. The cases of both forms I have found on oak, 

 pear, apple, plum, cherry, ash, beech, elm, and poplar trees : they occur at from two 

 to six feet from the ground, principally ; and after the eye becomes accustomed to 

 them, are not hard to find. If they occur here during the coming spring, in anything 

 like their usual abundance, I shall be most happy to send cases to any entomologists 

 who care to join Mr. Boyd and myself in endeavouring to settle the matter 

 conclusively. 



In rearing both fonns in 1869 and 70, I found my experience was exactly as Mr. 

 Boyd describes, the apterous form leaving the pupa-skin inside the case, while 

 melanella, or, I should have said, the winged form, left the puparium emerging more 

 or less from the case, sometimes bringing it altogether out; but when we consider 

 the activity of the winged form on the one hand, even when emerging from the 

 p\ipa, and the sluggish and almost legless apterous form, this difiiculty disappears 

 in a large measure. 



With respect to the editorial note attached to Mr. Boyd's paper, I nmy add 

 that pooh-poohing a subject will neither prove or disprove it; and I think that 

 the editors of the Magazine will hardly risk asserting that pomona has power to 

 reproduce itself continuously without the male form appearing. — Geobge llAitDiNO, 

 Stapleton, near Bristol : December 9lfi, 1875. 



Description of the larva of Botys terrealis. — On the 13th September last I 

 received a fine full-grown larva of this species from Mr. J. B. Ilodgkinson of Preston, 

 who had collected about half a score at drangc^ two days previously. 



