1885. 



135 



Choerocampa celerio at Walton-on-the-Naze. — I am glad to be able to add 

 another to the long list of captures of C. celerio, Mr. E. Bidwell having kindly given 

 me a specimen which had been caught by his nephew, Master 11. IT. Cotnian, at 2, 

 East Terrace, Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, on September 15th. The insect when 

 found was resting on the staircase, and was then quite perfect, but having been kept 

 in a box alive for four days was somewhat injured. — J. R. Wellman, 8 (late 219), 

 Medora Eoad, Elm Park, Brixton Rise, S.W. : October, 1885. 



Which is the true Coleophora flaraqinella ? — Of this insect, so named by 

 Madam Lienig, Zeller writes as follows in the " Isis " of 1816, p. 295 : — " Madam 

 Lienig has sent me several Livonian species of the more obscure forms of Coleophora, 

 but either in solitary specimens, or in specimens in such poor condition (they have 

 perhaps suffered from their journey to Grlogau) , that to name or describe them seems 

 scarcely advisable. I therefore only remark that Col. flavagineJIa, Lienig, is identical 

 with Fischer von Roslerstamm's C. flavagipennella (the former of these names seem 

 preferable from its greater brevity), and is a species of the size of C. luscinicepennella,* 

 with the anterior wings of the same colour, on which the brownish-yellow veins are 

 so broad, that the dirty yellowish ground colour is only perceptible here and there ; 

 towards the apex of the wing are some brown scales ; the antennae are annulated 

 black and white. Madam Lienig found the larva at the Pastorate from March to 

 the end of June on walls, fences, and birch-trunks. The case is small, grey, like a 

 grain of rye." 



I fear at the present day none of us can decipher the above description so as to 

 apply it to any species. There is no indication of a food plant, the birch trunks 

 may have only been sought as a convenient foothold by some hibernating larva, 

 which had fed up on some low plants, and it might be quite possible that the cases 

 collected from " walls, fences and birch trunks " did not all belong to the same 

 species. 



Perhaps before seeking information from later writers, it may be as well to say 

 something of Madam Lienig's locality. Few of us have been to Livonia, still fewer 

 to Kokenhusen. 



" The Pastorate of Kokenhusen," writes Zeller, " is two versts from Kokenhusen 

 itself, and, like that place, is situated on the right bank of the Diina, 14 milesf above 

 Riga. A stream, the Pehrse or Perse, flows near the Pastorate, and falls into the 



Diina below Kokenhusen A notice of the geological, botanical and 



climatic conditions of the locality must be deferred to a future occasion.":!: 



Tengstrom, in his " Bidrag till Finlands Fjiiril-Fauna " in 18-17, introduces C. 

 flavagineUa, Lienig, Zell., with a ?, but only says of it " In the middle of July, 

 once near Helsingfors in a hilly meadow." 



Zeller, in the 4th volume of the " Linn^a Entomologica," p. 353, gives a more 

 detailed description of the imago, to which I refer my readers. He remarks, " I 

 received from Madam Lienig a specimen of the species, with a case on the pin, which 

 was no doubt that from which the insect had emerged. This case resembles those 



* Our rose-feeding gryi>hipennella was then known as lusciniftpenneUa. 



t A German mile is about five English miles. . 



X This future occasion probably never occun-ed, and the flora amongst which Madam Lienig 

 worked is still unknown to us. 



