70 [August, 



one stripe through it and the thirteenth. (When quite full-grown, these stripes 

 become paler, and are then of a warm cream-colour.) The only indication of sub- 

 dorsal lines is in an indistinct and interrupted series of small white dots (more 

 numerous in some specimens than in others), from the second to about the ninth 

 segment. The spiracular stripes are of the clear bright lemon-yellow of those of 

 the dorsal area, and below them is another equally broad, but more interrupted, 

 white stripe. Spiracles black, the hairs grey. Ventral surface and pro-legs uniformly 

 dull black, anterior legs also black, but highly polished. The larva is very pretty, 

 and is a conspicuous and striking object when at rest, stretched along the midrib 

 under a slight web on the upper-side of a birch leaf, the spinning of the slight web 

 draws the edges of the leaf, and turns them up a little on each side. 



The bright colours are evidently not assumed until the last moult, but, unfor- 

 tunately, I have no description of the larva in an earlier stage. Whilst collecting 

 the larviB, I put in a separate box a number of supposed birch-feeding Tortrices, &c., 

 one of which developed into a bright Pempelia betida, but the only recollection I 

 have of it when found, is a dull uninteresting looking larva, brownish-blatk, with 

 dingy, pale, double dorsal stripe. This specimen did not spin up until quite the end 

 of June, whereas all the others were enclosed by about June 10th. My larvae formed 

 their cocoons in the corners of their cage, but Mr. Warren writes me that, in 

 a state of nature, " the larva makes a conspicuous white web in a leaf, or more fre- 

 quently draws three or four leaves together ; these nests are easily seen, and it 

 pupates within them." The pujm is from thi'ce-eighths to half-an-inch long, is 

 rough, but highly polished, of the usual shape, except that it has a more pointed 

 appearance, caused by the abdomen tapering rapidly to the anal segment, which ends 

 with a rather sharp point. All the parts are prominently defined, the colour uni- 

 formly black. My first imago appeared on July 3rd, but ]\Ir. Tindall had one out 

 on June 29th, and two more the day following, and he captured a female specimen 

 at large in the wood on the 28th. — Geo. T. Poeeitt, Huddersfield : July \lth, 

 1883. 



Tenthredo testudbiea, King. — On the 20th May, an espalier apple-tree was 

 covered with blossoms, from which a hundred or more apples set, but on the 20th 

 June, sixty of these, each about the size of a hazel-nut, were lying on the ground. 

 Each was found to have a black hole on one side, and in some, at a little distance, 

 was another larger, from which black matter was exuding. On cutting open 

 the apples, it was seen that they were mere shells, nearly filled with black-brown 

 powdery ejecta, those with one hole containing also a larva, but from those with two 

 holes the larva-tenant had escaped : they have their exits and their entrances, they 

 made the small hole to go in, and the larger one to get out : on the 29th June, the 

 tenements were all vacated. The eggs from which the larvaj came had been laid in 

 the flowers, so that the active, eating-life of the larvfe had existed only for four or 

 five weeks, and yet, during that time, they lived fast, for they were plump, sleek 

 creatures, half-an-inch in length, when turned out of their banquet-halls, though 

 while in situ they had been obliged to conform to circumstances, for, what with that 

 which they had eaten and voided, and that which they still had to eat, they had no 

 option but to assume a curved, recumbent position. Then, having fared sumptuously 

 every day (and night, too, doubtless), they turned out into the open world, and, like 



