NOTES ON C<)I.LKCTIN(i. 159 



late November until the end of March has quite escaped me ; at the 

 former date they were still curled up in their autumnal domiciles, which, 

 however, were slowly rotting away, whilst at the end of March no 

 vestige of their habitation is to be found, and one has to wait to find 

 the exposed larvfe on the new foliage. By the middle of April, how- 

 ever, a fair number could be found in the little tents they make for 

 themselves by spinning a young leaf into a little hollow chamber, in 

 which each larva lives. 



Platyptilia gonodactyla : In the late autumn of last year 

 (October, 1903), I found a single tiny larva mining the leaves of colts- 

 foot, but a later searching was fruitless, possibly from want of giving 

 sufficient time to the quest. A search on April 13th. on the marshes 

 near here, resulted in my finding two or three larva', but they are very 

 small, and, judging from their appearance, I am inclined to believe that 

 this larva is more or less a miner all its early life, continuing in the 

 leaves from autumn to spring, and then entering the lower part of the 

 flower-stalk where one of the bracts wraps the as yet only partly 

 developed peduncle. 



Platyptilia behtrami : An examination of the yarrow plants at 

 Higham, on April 4th, where P. hertmmi occurred last year, was fruit- 

 less ; there was no sign of larvae, nor did I see any sign of curled or other- 

 wise aft'ected shoots. I doubt whether they have yet commenced their 

 work, nor can I iind where they have been hiding all the winter. 



AciPTiLiA GALACTODACTYLA : What bccomes of the young larvfe 

 of AcijitiUa iialoctodacti/lo during the winter I cannot discover. 

 In November they are at rest on the stems, but these slowly 

 rot in the winter, and, in March, no trace of the foodplant 

 appears to exist. One suspects that they must pass the winter 

 curled up snugly among the ilebri><, close to the old rootstock. 

 Still, it is not at all certain that this is so. Between April 10th and 

 14th I visited three localities where the species is common, but, 

 altnough the leaves of the foodplant were up, and in some cases fairly 

 grown, I could find no traces of larva>, sunning or feeding openly, of 

 any kind. 



Agdistis bennetii : The autumnal larv* of ^//f//s^/.si^»»*'^// are read- 

 ily found on the old dried stems, etc., of Statice, until the weather becomes 

 too bad to search for them on their marshy habitat, i.t>., about mid- 

 November; at this time they are exactly of the colour of the dried stems 

 and seedheads, and the larva^ appeared to eat little or anything for at 

 least a month prior to this date. On April 12th a search for lai vae proved 

 unsuccessful ; every leaf of the foodplant was dry, brown, and as thin 

 as a piece of tissue paper, with no sign of young growth, and although 

 I beat and looked over a quantity of old flowering-stalks and seedheads 

 I did not find a single larva. A single larva was, however, found a 

 week later, and was then well grown, the vegetation, due to the hot 

 weather, having come on by leaps and bounds. — J. Ovenden, Frinds- 

 bury Road, Strood, Kent. April oth, 1904. 



Appearance of spring lepidoptera. — The first example of Aniaop- 

 tetyx a CSC I da via observed this year in this district was noticed on April 

 4th on palings ; the season seems to be at least a month late, owing 

 to the low temperature. On the evening of April 14th I went to 

 Chattenden to work the sallows, but the results were most unsatis- 

 factory, the only insects I took being Anticlca Uidiata, commonly, 



