1892.1 121 



with one or other o£ the taller kinds, such as glaucus and effiisics, and 

 though the latter were always more or less included in the search, I 

 never succeeded in finding any cases upon them until last autumn, 

 when they occurred in moderate quantity upon effusus, and in odd 

 instances upon glaucus and conglomeratus. Now, the vn^h-Coleopliorce 

 were anusually abundant last year, both as imagos and larv?e, and 

 alficolella fully participated in the abundance ; and it is under such 

 conditions, as I think all entomologists will agree, that eccentricities 

 of diet are apt to be noticed. Por instance, I have known two occa- 

 sions when the larvae of Tischeria complnnella invaded the Spanish 

 chestnuts {Castanea vulgaris), and on each the insect was swarming 

 in the leaves of its natural food, the oak ; on another occasion the 

 same very unpalatable plant was taken possession of by Nepticula 

 sub-himaculella at a time when it too was in overwhelming numbers in 

 the oak leaves. I think, therefore, we may still conclude that J. 

 lamprocarpus and acutijiorus are the natural food of alticolella, and 

 that its presence on any other rush is accidental or exceptional. The 

 larvae, I should add, are to be found all through the autumn, and be- 

 come full-fed about the end of November. 



The case is a handsome structure, ornamented round the lower part with the 

 perianth of the rush, and above this again with the three large, black, and shining 

 valves of the capsule. The mouth is of silk, it is turned somewhat down, and is 

 joined to the body by a sort of neck, which is much roughened on the exterior by 

 tiny particles of vegetable matter. At the other end is the free portion of the inner 

 case, projecting beyond the seed-envelopes, and taking up rather more than one- 

 fourth of the length of the entire structure ; this is made of clean silk, without any 

 admixture of foreign material, its colour being usually white, but sometimes grey ; it is 

 pinched in, as it were, at the extremity which gives it a triquetrous shape, and it is 

 furnished with the ordinary three-valved orifice. Such is the appearance of the full- 

 grown and typical case when the larva has fed upon lamprocarpus or glaucus, but 

 should the plant have been acutiflorus or effusus, then, as these rushes have smaller 

 and paler capsules, so the case is correspondingly modified, and at first sight might 

 almost be supposed to belong to another species. 



But the case did not start into existence fully equipped in ac- 

 cordance with the foregoing description. In its earliest beginning its 

 appearance was very different, and as it has already been admirably 

 described by Mr. Stainton in Nat. Hist. Tin., under murinipennella, I 

 cannot do better than transcribe the passage. He says, " No doubt 

 in the first instance it contents itself with eating out the interior of a 

 seed, but having done this, it takes possession of the empty seed-husk 

 and adopts it as its case ; in this it proceeds to an adjoining seed, and, 

 attaching its case to the outside, bores into the interior like any other 



