September, 1SS2.] 73 



A PEOBABLE CLUE TO THE HABITS OF CHAULIOBUS 

 INSECUEJSLLUS, STAINTON. 



BT H. T. STAINTON, F.E.S. 



I do not liiiow wlietlier there have been any recent captures of 

 this insect, but so far as I am aware it has never yet been bred. 



The possible habits of the Larva have long occupied my attention, 

 but it is only within the last twelve months that I have attained a fresh 

 idea as to its mode of feeding. 



I may premise that the earliest known captures of ChaiiUodus 

 insecicrellus were erroneously recorded in the Zoologist for 1848, p. 

 2035, under the name of Chauliodus Illigerellus (a vei*y different and 

 much larger insect) ; the two specimens which formed the subject of 

 that notice " were taken by Mrs. Stainton and her sister, on the downs 

 near Stoats' Xest, on the 31st July, 1847," and I then added, "I am 

 unable, not having caught them myself, to speak with certainty as to 

 what plant they were beaten out of, but most probably out of the 

 junipers, as we thrashed the junipers most assiduously for Cochylis 

 rutilana, of which I was fortunate enough to obtain five. Mr. "W. 

 Shepherd also took a specimen of this insect off the junipers at the 

 same place, the following week." 



In preparing my first Catalogue of British Tineidae and Ptero- 

 phoridfe (published in 1849), I realized that these little specimens of 

 a Chauliodus taken at Stoats' Nest were not the veritable Illigerellus, 

 and I proposed for them the name of insecurella (in this Catalogue 

 they stand in the genus Elacliista under section A). I then mentioned 

 that I had again met with it on the downs at Stoats' Nest, August 

 16th, 184S, but was still uncertain as to the plant that it frequented. 



I have no record of the number of specimens I caught on that 

 occasion, but two of those captures and the two specimens of July 

 31st, 1S47, are the sole representatives of the species now existing in 

 my collection. During a period of 34 years I have made no fresh 

 captures of the insect. 



The description which I gave in the Zoologist for 1848 (not having 

 then fine specimens before me) is of little use, and unfortunately I 

 am hardly better satisfied with the description 'n\ the Insecta Britan- 

 nica volume, for the points of distinction on which I am now disposed 

 to lay the most stress are not there alluded to. 



Of late years several new species of the genus Chauliodus have 

 been described by the German and French Entomologists, and in 



