188 [January, 



in the blade of this leaf, often running half-way, or even all round the edge of it, 

 the frass forming a continuous dark central line. After a while, the larva bores 

 down the petiole of the leaf and up that of another, sometimes the opposite one, 

 sometimes one of those at the next node. This leaf, unless buried among long 

 herbage, becomes of a dull purple colour, while the larva is tunnelling up its foot- 

 stalk, owing, probably, to the interference with its sap-supplies hastening its ripening. 

 Arrived at the blade of this leaf, the larva makes a wide blotch-like mine, often 

 removing a great part, or even the whole of the parenchyma, unless the leaf be a 

 very large one, when the mine takes the form of a broad zigzag gallery. Should the 

 second leaf be very small, a third, or even a fourth, leaf may be rained. The frass 

 forms a broad, broken, dark line in the middle of the mine. The full-fed larva is 

 about two lines long ; head very pale brown; body bright yellow; food showing 

 through in the dorsal region as a long, dark green blotch. Cocoon dark brown, 

 mussel-shaped, slightly keeled at larger end, rather flossy. The moths begin to 

 appear at the end of May, and again towards the end of August, while the larvae 

 may be found at the end of July and beginning of August, and for the second time 

 at the end of September, and almost throughout October. 



It is, perhaps, worth noticing that the larva of Phyllocnisiis saligna, ZelL, 

 greatly resembles that of Nepticula headleyella in its way of travelling from leaf to 

 leaf. The egg is laid near the mid-rib of a leaf of one of the smooth-leaved wil- 

 lovFs. The young larva mines the upper-side of the leaf, parallel with the mid-rib, 

 sometimes for nearly its whole length ; then bores down the petiole, and down the 

 twig for an inch or more, turns round and mines up the twig for several inches, say, 

 from four to eight, keeping the whole time just under the epidermis, then up the 

 petiole of another leaf, in the under-side of which it makes a gallery of several 

 inches' length before pupating in a little blotch at the edge of the leaf. I may add 

 that the quickest way of finding the larvae or pupae is to search for the twigs with 

 the bark mined. — W. H. B. Fletchee, Fairlawn, Worthing : December 13th, 1886. 



Neptieula desperatella, Frey (nem to the British List), in Herefordshire.— Jj&si 

 June I bred three specimens of this unicolorous bronzy Nepticula from wild apple. 

 Mr. Stainton kindly named it, and furnished me with the following quotation from 

 Frey's Tineen u. Pterophoren der Schweiz, p. 374 : — " The rather bright green larva 

 occurs on wild apple trees in October, on quite young bushes, often in prodigious 

 quantities — all the leaves appearing brown from the mines of these larvae, of which 

 I have found 12 or more in one leaf — though I have bred the insect freely, I have 

 never seen a specimen of the imago at large." 



I would add, that here the insect appears to be exclusively a woodland species, 

 and at the same time very local, being confined to one large wood, where, among the 

 older portions of the undergrowth it hunts up its scattered food-plant, following it 

 quite to the boundary fence, and refusing to go further, though wild apple is plenti- 

 ful enough in the adjoining hedges. The larvae, which should be looked for from the 

 middle to the end of September, occur in some quantities on the same bush, and 

 are, therefore, easy to find, and would be still more so, had they not a special liking 

 for the small inconspicuous shoots that grow close to the ground. The leaves on 

 these low shoots are so small, or even minute, that they seldom contain more than 



