March, 1895. 1 57 



A HUNT FOR PnORODESMA SMARAGDAEIA. 

 BY HENEY A- AULD. 



Little more than five and twenty years ago P. smarngdaria was 

 hardly known as a British Lcpidopteron. Mr. Haggar and Mr. 

 Douglas were fortunate in finding it in this country. Newman records 

 that " Thomas Ingall found the caterpillar of this species on the coast 

 of Essex." Stainton says that it is rare, and gi\'es Southend, South- 

 church, and St. Osyth as localities in which it has been found. 



Having been urged by that indefatigable collector, Joseph 

 Chapjiell, of Manchester, to go and seek the larva on the coast of 

 Essex, bearing in mind that what we had to look for would be decked 

 out with fragments of its food-plant, like its first cousin P. hajularia — 

 a veritable Jack-in-the-green — we determined that on the first oppor- 

 tunity we would do our best to make its acquaintance. 



Now the question of its food-plant was the difficulty. Did it feed 

 on milfoil, we asked ? Yet why should we doubt it ? Kirby, in his 

 " European Butterflies and Moths," has figured the larva on Achillea 

 miUefoJium (pi. 47c), besides we remembered that on one occasion 

 living larva; were exhibited on a spray of yarrow at a meeting of one 

 of the London Societies, and so, although we started on the wrojig 

 scent, our minds were set at rest later on. 



When once Messrs. INIachin and Pratt began to find the larva; of 

 P. smaragdnria in fair numbers, the food did not long remain a mys- 

 tery. Both of these Entomologists had a certain number of followers 

 eager to secure the rarity, and the story runs thus : — One man hard 

 at work beating Cohoptera from the sea-wormwood {Artemisia inari- 

 iima), which grows so abundantly and luxuriantly on the saltings, upon 

 examining the tray for the smaller species of his quest, much to his 

 astonishment saw a piece of the plant stretch itself out and begin to 

 walk away. Eureka ! he cried, and placed it in a box. Presently he 

 chanced to come face to face with a " brother" hunter, and as in that 

 district in those days collectors generally gave one another a berth of 

 a mile or so, they were not over anxious to travel the same road. 

 Nevertheless, he of the net remarked, " Well, have you got anything ?" 

 " Yes, I rather think I have!" rejoined our beetle-catching friend, 

 "What is it?" anxiously asks the other. "Why, it is your friend 

 smaraf/dnriay The larva was produced, the rival's face grew very 

 long indeed, and he said, " No it ain't " (which was neither true nor 

 grammatical), but when j\Ir. Coleopterist said, " Well, any how, I mean 

 to rear it, and see what it comes to," the truth, the whole truth, and 



