1886. 



203 



from them belong. There are no mines in the mountain ash here, although pomi- 

 foliella and spinicolella are common enough, the former espeeially. Prunus padus, 

 80 little attacked by Lepidoptera (always excepting Hyp.padi), must have rather close 

 affinities with Sorhus aucuparia, as I saw a series of remarkably fine Argyresthia 

 sphiiella, wliich had been captured from the bird -cherry by a friend of mine last 

 autumn, and there is no mountain ash in the neighbourhood, so they had undoubtedly 

 fed on the tree. 



The mines of the Lithocolletis, probably from the thinness of the leaves, were 

 very large, and the leaves often, in consequence, quite recurved, exactly like the 

 leaves of honeysuckle mined by the larvae of L. trifasciella. — J. Sang, 33, Oxford 

 Street, Darlington : February I5th, 1886. 



Probable food of Trifurcula pallidella. — Professor Zeller noticed in 1861, that 

 on the Carinthian Alps this insect flew amongst Genista sagittalis, and suggested 

 that it was probably attached to that plant, just as T, immundella is attached to the 

 common broom (Eut. Ann., 1862, p. 140). Wocke in his conclusion of Heinemann's 

 " Schmetterlinge Deutschlands und der Schweiz," Zweite Abth., Band ii. Heft ii, 

 p. 726, says the only specimen he took in Silesia was on Genista germanica. 



I have been led from the above to infer that with us the insect will be found 

 attached to Genista tinctoria, and when writing to Mr. A. F. Griffith the other day 

 about his two specimens recorded at p. 65 of this volume, I put to him the question 

 if he could remember whether they had been found amongst Genista tinctoria ? 

 His reply was very satisfactory : " My two specimens were taken one evening in a 

 waste corner of a field, near St. Alban's, which was covered with Genista tinctoria, 

 together with Scabiosa succisa, Hypericum^ &c. There are plenty of scattered plants 

 of Genista in the neighbourhood, but this particular corner had been left unculti- 

 vated for several years, and had become quite grown over with the Genista tinctoria." 



My inference that Genista tinctoria grew in the very locality where the 

 specimens of Trifurcula pallidella had been captured by Mr. Griffith has thus been 

 very fully confirmed. 



Unfortunately for the anticipations of those who may have been hoping to place 

 a series of the insect in their collections, Mr. Griffith added: " Last year I went there 

 one day and found the whole place ploughed up." — H. T. Stainton, Mountsfield, 

 Lewisham : March 8t/i, 1886. 



Insects at Shiere in 1885. — Although the greater part of the year 1885 was not 

 very productive in insect life, yet I met with several species worth noting, some 

 of which I have not before observed in this neighbourhood. 



Among the Coleoptera, Oodes helopioides occurred under cut reeds, and 

 Harpalus caspius on the chalk bills ; Luperus flavipes on oak ; Cryptocephalus morcei 

 in the blossom of hawthorn, and pusillus in abundance on Brachypodium pinnatum ; 

 Magdalinus pruni and cerasi on blackthorn, and a few atramentarius in hedges ; 

 some sand-pits afforded Chrysomela Goettingerisis, Calodera umbrosa, Tachyusa 

 scitula, Myrtnedonia limbata, Honialoia elegantula, and scapularis, and also several 

 specimens of the rare Euplectus Kunzei, while casual sweeping gave Ceuthorhynchus 



Y 2 



