1885.] 258 



The larva turns down the tip of an oak-leaf, thereby forming a habitation of an 

 irregular aiid somewhat conical shape, in which it lives until it has eaten the greater 

 part of the leaf, but during this process it keeps its habitation intact. It then 

 altogether deserts this leaf, and removes to another, and after having made another 

 home for itself in the same way, it eats that leaf also. Thus, when nearly full-fed, 

 a leaf of average size lasts it for board and lodging about two days. 



It does not leave any frass in its habitation. 



The larva is full-fed about the middle of June, when it quits its habitation and 

 goes down into the earth, where it spins a very tough cocoon composed of earth and 

 brownish silk, in which it shortly turns to a pupa. In this state it remains during 

 the summer, autumn, and winter, emerging about March in the next year. 



The pupa is rather dark reddish-brown in colour, with a transverse row of four 

 spikes at the tail, and two rows of smaller ones on the back of each segment. 



As the moth emerges shortly before the time when the buds of the oak are 

 beginning to shoot, and as the larva does not seem to be at all gregarious, it may be 

 presumed that the eggs are laid singly on the oak-buds. — Nelson M. Richardson, 

 Llangennech Park, Llangennech, E. S. O., Carmarthenshire : March 14th, 1885. 



The larva of Fhlcsodes teiraqttetrana.—'Prohahlj most of us are familiar with 

 this common larva, living late in the autumn under the turned-down edge of a birch 

 leaf, but it is not, perhaps, so generally known that this is only the latter portion of 

 its history, the manner of its earlier life being very different, and spent within a 

 swelling on the twigs. These swellings are by no means conspicuous, which must 

 account for their having been so commonly overlooked, and my own success in dis- 

 covering them last spring was, no doubt, largely owing to the experience I had 

 recently gained by the study of a very similar kind of growth, the work of H. Servil- 

 lana in the sallow shoots. At the time of discovery they were empty and deserted 

 and the mine within commencing to be filled up by new gi'owth, but on July 3rd I 

 had the pleasure of finding newly-made swellings containing larvae about y\j inch long. 

 Fresh mines were opened from time to to time, but their occupants were found to 

 grow so slowly, that no attempt at collecting them was made until September 20th, 

 on which occasion one or two having been found empty, I judged it advisable to delay 

 no longer, and, therefore, brought home a handful of shoots, and placed them in 

 water. Very shortly I found that an individual or so had left its mine, and was 

 feeding upon the leaves ; having constructed a small chamber by folding over a por- 

 tion of the leaf. In time, all adopted the same practice, but in one or two instances 

 where a leaf lay conveniently near, and the larva was able to reach it by spinning a 

 short connection, I noticed that it continued for a little longer to occupy its old 

 quarters. Hitherto, I had been much puzzled as to what they could be, but with 

 their change in habit the mystery ceased, and to my surprise, as well as somewhat 

 to my disappointment also, I recognised in the larva that I had been watching with 

 such care the very common and widely-known P. tetraquetrana. 



The swellings occur on the young upright shoots in the heads of birch bushes. 

 Like those of Servillana, they occupy the region of the buds, and also resemble them 

 very closely in shape and general appearance, but are smaller. It is, I think, worthy 

 of notice that in both the growth takes place rapidly, and appears to reach its full 



