l88o.] (^^ 



The home of Cidaria reticulata. — I have often been asked to give the life- 

 historj of this beautiful insect; by this tinie I ought to know something of it, after 

 thirty years continuous attention. I first met with it in 1856, on the borders of 

 Windermere Lake in Lancashire, then the late T. H. Allis and I met with some 

 five or six specimens ; at the time we both thought it to be a second brood of C. 

 silaceata ; but the year following, T. H. Allis was visiting H. Doubleday at Epping, 

 and as they were looking over the European collection of the latter, he, pointing to 

 reticulata, said, " Thomas, thou oughtest to get this in thy north journey ;" Allis at 

 once said, " I have taken it, both Hodgkinson and I took it last year." H. Double- 



j day was rather sceptical until specimens were sent to him to enable him to verify 

 the species. In the meantime I had sold mine for one shilling each as silaceata ; 

 year after year we looked for more, but to no purpose ; we had left some pieces of 

 paper on bushes to show which way either of us had gone through the woods, and 

 Allis told Butler, of Kendal, to go and look where the papers were left ; he went, 



I and took five in one day, some two miles apart ; there have never been as many 

 taken since. I once got three, and during thirty years I have only captured nine 

 specimens. The insect is, like C. silaceata, of a retiring disposition. After tliat, the 

 Eev. J. Hellins, of Exeter, wrote me, saying, that the supposed food-plant was the 

 English balsam, Impatiens noli-me-tangere. I had never seen the plant ; I told 

 Gregson, and he told me where he had seen the plant, but I could not find the place, 

 it was so overgi'own with bushes, &c., until 1877 or 1878, when I got into a fix in a 

 swamp, and was carefully looking where to step next, when I saw a strange plant, I 

 hastily picked it up, got on to a dry place, and was sure it was the long sought-for 

 Impatiens; a few days after I went with working boots on, I looked carefully at all the 

 plants, but saw only the leaves of one plant eaten, I found the larva, sent it on to 

 Mr. Buckler, he pronounced it to be Hadena rectilinea, about one-tliird grown ; he 

 asked me if any bilberry was near : there was some a hundred yards off ; no doubt 

 it was a stray egg laid on the balsam. 



I went again in September, took a few plants home with me, got my glass and 

 spent several hours in trying to see if I could find any eggs ; I found some, they 

 duly hatched ; the larva, wlieu young, being transparent, looked like a faint white 

 streak; I paid great attention to them, gave them leaves, flowers, and seeds; the 

 latter is the favourite pabulum ; the great difficulty is to keep the plant, it shrivels 

 and dries up if injured in the least, or if air gets to it becomes mouldy directly ; I 

 found the best way to keep it fresh was in a tin canister with blotting paper. I got 

 a fair number of the larvee in 1878, but the mortality was great. The Eev. a. 

 Smart, of Lytham, called one day, and I brought him ten dead larvae in my hand. 

 I suppose the want of the bracing air made them succumb. 1 sent two larva? to 

 Mr. Buckler, from which he bred one imago. The place got destroyed, I have been 

 several times since, but not found one larva ; the plant still exists, but I have not found 

 any larva since 1878. During October, 1883, I went to a place where I had seen 

 the plant some years ago, and I found two larvae only, one each on the 30tli and 

 31st October ; one emerged in Julj, 1884. Had I not known the exact spot for the 

 little clump of the plant, my long journey at this time of the year would have been 

 fruitless. Last year I re-risited the same place, but six weeks too early ; the larv^ 

 were young; I got fresh supplies of food, and kept thorn singly, they did not seem 



