272 THE entomologist's record. 



it certainly does not tend to support Mr. Barrett's statement, qiioted 

 by Mr. Tutt, that the larvae of the earlier brood gnaw the leaves of their 

 foodplant. At fairly frequent intervals throughout this season I have 

 carefully examined the plants of Erythraea centanrium in a spot where 

 the insect is well-established, but totally failed to find any trace of the 

 larvse until July 4th, when a few of various sizes were found, feeding, 

 not on the leaves, but on the contents of the unopened flowers (inside 

 which they live, entirely concealed from view, until they become too 

 large for such small domiciles), and of the young seed-vessels. These 

 larvae were posted to Mr. A. Bacot, but a few more, found on the 

 following day, remained with me, and produced imagines, July 17th- 

 25th. Mr. Tutt says that there are no records of captures of zophodac- 

 tylus before July, and then only in early seasons. The absence of any 

 records of captures in July in normal seasons, is, however, probably 

 purely accidental, for, in this decidedly late season, the imago must 

 have been out in nature by the middle of July, seeing that I bred it, 

 unforced, on July 17th, while last year, ever memorable for the excep- 

 tionally late appearances of summer species, I took six niuch worn 

 moths as early as July 10th. Again, seeing that I have bred the imago 

 in different years as late as September 14th and September 16th, from 

 larvae collected in August, feeding on the green seeds, and have cap- 

 tured beautifully fresh specimens as late as September 27th (in south 

 Devon), and October 2nd (all my dates, unless it is otherwise stated, 

 refer to the same district of south Dorset), it seems pretty evident that 

 there are normally two broods at least, the larvae of both feeding on 

 the flowers or green seeds according to size and circumstances. In- 

 dividual plants of KrytJiraea centanrium — the only foodplant on which 

 I have found this species — could always be found in a suitable condi- 

 tion, even in the same spot, to admit of a succession of broods of larvae 

 being reared from the end of June onwards. Since the above note 

 was sketched out I have succeeded in obtaining ova of zophodactyhis 

 from both a bred and a captured female ; these will be at once placed 

 in Mr. A. Bacot's able hands, so that the question will doubtless be 

 definitely settled in due course"''. Remembering that Erythraea cen- 

 taiiriuiii is an annual, and cannot be satisfactorily utilized by the 

 insect in any way after it has once died down in the autumn {cf. antea, 

 p. 48), the fact that ova are, even in a late year, laid on it, in nature, 

 before the end of July, aftbrds strong presumptive evidence that the 

 species is regularly double-brooded, and it seems to me possible that, in 

 some seasons, at any rate in the south of England, there may be more 

 than two broods. [P.S. — I notice now that Snellen, in De Tlinders 

 van Nederland, Microlep.,^. 1043 (1882), says of S. zophodactyla (under 

 the name Pterophorus loeivii) that it "flies in July and in the autumn," 



*The larvae, arising from these eggs together with others, were handed over to 

 me about August 15th. They pupated in due course, and the moths commenced 

 to emerge at the end of the month, and had all emerged (some 80 or so) before the 

 middle of September. A large number were sleeved on a plant of Erythraea 

 centauriinn that I managed to find still in bloom (the mass of the species being 

 practically already dead), and kept there for about three weeks. Not one egg was laid, 

 nor did any of several ? s that died contain a trace of eggs, but were fairly laden 

 with yellow and oily " fat-bodies," etc. The proof that the imagines hibernate is 

 thus very strong indeed, to my mind conclusive, but I am making an attempt to 

 keep some of the moths over the winter ; the probable failure will, I am certain, be 

 my fault, and not that of the moths. — T. A. Chapman. 



