org [December, 



organs, but apparently without actual structure. Thorax covered with 

 a black-brown shining plate, like that of a larva ; legs rather long, 

 slender, with strongly hooked feet, with which it clings tightly to the 

 case; body pinkish-white, thinly covered with dark grey scales, except 

 at the segmental divisions, which are naked ; anal extremity bluntly 

 terminated and broad (like the head of a barrel), having a dense 

 circlet of long brownish-white scales; ovipositor brownish-white, 

 telescopic, and when fully extended, as long as the whole remainder of 

 the creature, but usually so far withdrawn in its three long joints 

 that only a small horny point projects from the lower portion of the 

 obtuse anal segment. 



From the examination of a perfectly fresh male also sent, it 

 appears that the description already given is incomplete, since the 

 surface of the fore-wings is neatly, though very obscurely, reticulated 

 all over with faintly blacker cross lines, and a large, slightly blacker, 

 spot shows itself at the end of the discal cell. These markings are 

 not visible in specimens which have become a little faded in the 

 cabinet. The cases, as usual, were blackish, moderately erect, slightly 

 constricted at each end, and with minute bits of dead leaf or bark 

 scattered over their sui'face. The moths emerged in June and the 

 beginning of July. 



39, Linden Grove, Nutihead, S.E. : 

 October, 1895. 



ON THE LAKVA OF MAMESTRA ANCEPS, Hub., INFESTA, Tk. 

 BY CHAS. G. BAEEETT, P.E.S. 



When conversing with my friend Mr. John Gardner at Hartle- 

 pool some months ago, he called my attention to the absence, in the 

 late Mr. W. Buckler's great work on the larvae of British Butterflies 

 and Moths, of any figure of, or reference to, the larva of Mamestra 

 anceps, Hiib., an omission the more remarkable since the insect is 

 tolerably common in many parts of England, both inland and on the 

 coast, and in some districts abundant. IMr. Gardner, thinking it 

 desirable that such small amount of knowledge as Mr. Buckler seems 

 to have possessed of this larva should be placed on record, searched 

 for and subsequently sent me a letter to himself from Mr. Buckler 

 on the subject, with permission to make it public. Mr. Buckler says : — 

 " I have reason to know that it is rather tapering at each end. It 

 cannot be very much unlike that of Apamea basilinea I am disposed to 

 , think, from the circumstance of the Parish Clerk having picked up, 

 in a field, a larva, some years ago, which he took to the Rev. H. 



