1886.] 101 



kindly informs us that it is a Limnobid of the genus Trimicra, O.-S. 

 The genus is cosmopolitan ; it has already been received from New 

 Zealand. There is a notable discrepancy in the two accounts. Mr. 

 Meyrick says the light proceeds from " the back of the neck," Mr. 

 Hudson from the "posterior extremity." We earnestly ask for speci- 

 mens of the larva preserved in alcohol, or mounted in balsam as a 

 microscopic slide. In connection with luminous Diptera, we call at- 

 tention to Baron Osten-Sacken's notes in Ent. Mo. Mag., xv., p. 43. — 

 Editors.] 



ON THE PEETTY NEW SPECIES OF GELECHIA {NANNODIA), 

 ALLIED TO N^VIFERELLA {STIPELLA, HUBNER), WHICH 

 IS ATTACHED TO SILENE NUTANS. 



BY H. T. STAINTON, F.R.S. 



Most of my readers who have worked at all at the larvae of the 

 Micro- Lepidoj^t era are familiar with the beautifully white blotch-mines 

 in the leaves of Atriplex and Chenop odium, caused by the larvae of 

 Gelechia (Nannodia) ncBviferella , and those who have bred that species 

 know well how little can an idea of the species be formed by those 

 who know it only from specimens captured on the wing. 



The insect is liable to considerable variation ; and a form which 

 seems not uncommon in Germany, to which Hiibner gave the name 

 of stipella, is at a first glance so strikingly different, that it is hardly a 

 subject for wonder that for long it was considered as a distinct species 

 from the ordinary, more sober-looking form of ncBviferella. StipeUa 

 differs from ncdvifereUa in having a broad yellow fascia a little dis- 

 tance from the base, and a large yellow spot on the inner margin 

 beyond the middle, and a large yellow spot beyond it just below the 

 pale costal spot of ncBviferella. 



Of this form I do not seem to possess any British representative, 

 but, on the other hand, I have three specimens of nceviferella, with the 

 entire inner margin yellow from very near the base to the anal angle 

 — of this form I have, so far, seen no representative amongst the 

 specimens I have at various times received from the continent. 



A few years ago, my friend Herr Eppelsheim, of Griinstadt, in 

 the Palatinate, met with a new species of Nannodia. to which Staud- 

 inger has given the name of Eppehheimi, describing it in the Stettiner 

 entom. Zeitung, 1885, p. 351 ; this insect so resembles the stipella 

 form of ncBviferella, that I felt at first doubtful whether it was not 

 really that insect, but a closer examination, and a long series with 

 which its discoverer so liberally provided me, satisfied me that it was 



