32 THE entomologist's recorl-. 



of British coleopterists have every reason to feel satisfied with the 

 work done durina: the season now drawn to a close. 



Further Notes on the Genus Coleophora. 



By H. J. TUKNEE, F.E.S. 

 There seems to be consideraljle confusion with regard to the identifica- 

 tion of the cases made by the larvas of this interesting genus. In most in- 

 stances, their shape, position, and structure, together with the plants upon 

 which they occur, are quite sufficient to give almost absolutely correct 

 determinations, at any rate, as far as our British species are concerned, 

 whereas, to identify the imagines, especially when not perfectly fresh 

 and indifferently set (as they often are), is always a matter over which 

 a certain amount of doubt creeps in. When we come to the numerous, 

 I had almost said innumerable, species, given in the Avorks of various 

 continental authors, we meet with a further difficulty which is practi- 

 cally, at present at any rate, insurmountable. It is that many names 

 have been given, based on a few captured examples, or even only on a 

 solitary individual, about the iife-history of which nothing was known 

 or has since been found out. 



Some forty years ago, Herrich-lSchaft'er pointed out, in the Corres- 

 pondenzblatt fiir ticuiimler con Insecten, that the position of the mouth 

 relatively to the direction of the body of the case was a character 

 of so much stability, that it might be largely depended upon to 

 differentiate the species. He called attention to the fact that the 

 mouths were either straight, i.e., at right angles to the body of the 

 cases (which would bring them perpendicular to their plane of 

 attachment), or they were more or less oblique (which would cause the 

 cases to be at some angle less than a right angle to their plane of 

 attachment). In the extreme obliquity, he pointed out, the mouth 

 was parallel with the body of the case, which, therefore, would 

 be brought down to lie parallel to the plane of attachment. For 

 these various positions he used numerals. By 1, he designated 

 the extreme position when the case is so placed, that its body is 

 normally parallel to the plane of attachment. Perhaps the most familiar 

 example among our British Coleophorids is the case of L'oleupliora 

 paripennella, which lies prone on the surface of the leaf. The opposite 

 extreme is when the normal position of the case is perpendicular to 

 the plane of attachment and the mouth is at right angles to the body 

 of the case. This position he denoted by the figure 5. The nearest 

 example of this, which occurs to me at the moment, is that of C. 

 heiiierubiella, whose case is usually referred to as 4-5. When the obliquity 

 of the position of the case is midway between these two extremes, 

 that IS at 45"^ to the plane of attachment, he used the numeral '6. 

 The intermediate positions he marked by the numerals 2 and 4. Thus 

 there are five main positions, and any degree of obliquity not consonant 

 with these five can easily be marked by the variation 4-5, 1-2, c^c, as 

 Heinemann has done in his Kle'nischincUniuuic DciitscldamL Of course, 

 it must be borne in mind that individuals of the same species may 

 differ, and hence it is necessary to base one's observations upon the 

 general position of a number of individuals. I now append some 

 notes made during 1903 on two of our British species : — 



(1) Coleophora fuscedinella. — This year I had a considerable 



