1895.] 275 



they would start oft" as if they were going to walk away, but it would 

 only be for an inch or so, when they would rapidly return and then 

 repeat this sort of thing in various directions, but never leaving the 

 all-important egg-shell; they would nibble a bit of this food, which 

 seemed a tough morsel for the jaws of the young larva. Some would 

 eat the whole shell, others less, but for the first few hours they seemed 

 to mount guard over this food, and should perchance another larva 

 come within touch, they went for it, fighting vigorously to drive away 

 the intruder. But should the young larva be driven away before it 

 had finished its first and only meal, say two or three hours from the 

 time of hatching and eating its shell, the result was death to the 

 vanquished, as I never could get them to eat any other egg-shell than 

 their own. I tried several, but I never saw them eat save their own 

 egg-shell, and I never saw them eat after their first meal until the first 

 change of skin, which took place about the 7th day after hatching. I 

 gave them leaves of oak and beech, but although I watched them most 

 closely, they were never touched. It is of course common for many 

 larva) to eat their own egg-shell, but I never met with any otherwhere 

 the one meal sufficed to satisfy them until after the first change of 

 skin. This fact is, so far as I know, quite unique. The usual changes 

 of skin, and pupation, have been most fully and ably given in the 

 posthumous work, " The larvae of British Butterflies and Moths," by 

 the late Mr. Buckler. But this feature is there only mentioned in a 

 foot-note (Vol. ii, p. 66) by Mr Stainton, containing an extract from 

 a letter from Mr. Doubleday to Mr. Buckler. The foregoing notes 

 fully confirm Mr. Doubleday's statement. 



Lewisliam Road, Greenwich : 

 September, 1895. 



FURTHER NOTES ON FUME A BETULINA, Zellek. 

 BY ClIAS. a. BARRETT, F.E.S. 



My recent notes on the Psychidce have already borne fruit ! My 

 friend Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher has been at work in the New Forest, 

 and has found cases of Fumea befulina, Z., which have produced, in 

 very small numbers, imagines of both sexes. He sent up females 

 alive, with their cases. The female proves to be unlike those of F. 

 ruhoricolella and intermediella in that it is not curved into a semicircle, 

 nor tapered off behind. It is very plump, and hardly bent, but almost 

 barrel-shaped ; head shining, black-brown, with antennae very slender, 

 rather beaded, drooping, and of a brown colour ; the rest of the head 

 a mere horny mask, having indications of the form of the mouth 



Z 2 



