236 ■ t^^^^^cb, 



crawling fibout in the inside of the bottle. The catkins were getting too dry to be 

 eatable, having been in the bottle nearly four months. Being unable to obtain more 

 catkins, as they had been out of flower for some weeks, I placed in the jar some nut 

 buds, and was pleased to see that the larTse ate into them in the same manner that I 

 had found them eating the alder buds in the spring This cleared up the point that 

 the larvae had the same habits upon the nut as upon the alder, of feeding in the 

 catkin when small, and resorting to the buds when the catkins had become too 

 expanded to conceal them ; or as they were then dead, for the withered remains 

 of the catkins upon the trees were less fit for food than those which I had kept in 

 the jar. At the beginning of April, I visited the locality where I had obtained the 

 larvae, thinking I might be able to get a fresh supply, and being anxious to ascertain 

 whether in a state of nature they eat the nut buds. The latter point I was able to 

 settle, as I found numbers of buds scooped out by the larvse ; I could not, however, 

 find any larva?, and all buds that had been eaten had grown considerably since their 

 voracious visitor had left them, so it was evident that those I had in confinement in 

 a cool and almost sunless room, had been more retarded in their growth than their 

 comrades who, though exposed to the frost of winter, and often with their pendulous 

 home encased in snow and ice, yet had the warmth of every hour's sunshine. On 

 the 3rd of May I visited my alder locality, and found the larvae almost full-fed 

 within the buds. When attacking a fresh bud the habit of the larva is generally to 

 make the hole near the foot of the bud, between the bud and the stem, so that when 

 it had got within the bud, the hole by which it had entered was almost concealed. 

 This method of operation had also the advantage, that the larvae were less exposed 

 while eating into the bud than if they had commenced in any other position. On the 

 25th of May I again searched these alders, and found the larvae then full grown ; the 

 alder was almost fully in leaf, and the larvse in search of fresh pabulum had evidently 

 difficulty in finding unexpanded buds. Buds which had begun to open were webbed 

 at the top slightly to keep them together, and in one instance I found a larva which 

 had webbed together two young leaves, but in this as in all cases where leaves were 

 attached to buds, the larvse appeared only to eat the projecting ribs of the under-side of 

 the leaf. Finding that the larvse were to some extent forsaking the buds, I applied 

 a walking stick rather vigorously to the branches, with the result of finding several 

 larvae in the umbrella held beneath. Two days after this I bred G. Fenkleriana from 

 the larvse out of the nut catkins obtained in November, and on the 6th of July and 

 following I bred it from the larvae got in April and May in alder buds. 



The larva, when young, is pale green, and tapers slightly and gradually from 

 the third to the anal segment ; head and second segment unusually large and shining 

 black, having somewhat the appearance of a helmet ; thoracic feet dark. As the 

 larva approaches full growth, the third to sixth segments become slightly swollen, 

 and the head and second segment are proportionately less and lose their blackness, 

 being but very slightly darker than the rest of the body, with some brownish markings ; 

 spiracles very small, with a spot above and below very faintly darker ; a few shining 

 Bpots on anal segment ; pupa light brown, with large wing-cases meeting to a 

 projecting point in front ; eye-case large, round, and conspicuously black-brown. — 

 A. Balding, Wisbech : December 30ih, 1885. 



Longevity of the larva of Nepticula apicella. — At the beginning of September 



