1881.] 177 



THE OCCURRENCE IN HEREFORDSHIRE OF PEMPELIA EOSTILIS, 

 WITH DESCRIPTION OF THE LARVA. 



BY JOHN H. WOOD, M.B., AND W. BUCKLER. 



I was fortunate enough, last June, to breed three specimens of 

 this rare insect, a species that has not, I believe, been taken in this 

 country for many years. 



The larva? were met with somewhat accidentally. I was hunting 

 one day in the middle of September, 1S79, among underwood, for 

 larvae of the Glosterce, when I caught sight of a few strands of silk 

 spun from a brown curled aspen leaf to a living green one. On 

 picking the dead leaf and uncurling it, I saw exposed on its surface a 

 silken tube, at once suggestive of the work of a knothorn, and this 

 supposition became almost a certainty, when the little grey larva, after 

 i some persuasion, was prevailed on to show itself. For the rest of the 

 1 afternoon I had, as may be supposed, eyes for nothing but dead or 

 dying asp>en leaves, and the result was two more nests. I call them 

 nests, because I subsequently found that with one exception, in which 

 instance only a single larva was present, the leaves were occupied by 

 two or even three larva? living together, each in its own gallery, but 

 with the galleries closely joining or even interlacing. The larva? at 

 this time were very young, and considering the choice they had made 

 (in the one case of a dead leaf, in the other two of the old tenements 

 of other larva?), might readily have been overlooked ; but it was quite 

 a different matter when I found, later in the month, a fourth nest con- 

 taining two nearly full grown larva?. As in the others, so there was 

 here, the nucleus of two half dead yellow leaves, but from these were 

 stretching in all directions bands of silk to the adjacent fresh ones, 

 which had been freely eaten, drawing them together and thus making 

 a large and conspicuous object. I sent Mr. Buckler two of the larva?, 

 and am greatly indebted to his kindness for the description of them 

 given below ; unfortunately, both proved to be stung. Mine, when 

 full fed, left their nests. They spun up (four of them) in rolls 

 of paper, and changed to pupa? at once. Being anxious to see the 

 moth, I forced one early in the spring, and was punished with a very 

 bad cripple ; the others left to themselves produced fine specimens 

 in June. 



The question arises — which selects the site of the nest ? Does 

 the parent moth lay her eggs on these old leaves, or do the larva? 

 wander about till they find them ? In favour of the former is the 

 fact, that more than one larva is generally present ; nevertheless, I 

 am inclined to think that the latter is the correct view, since the exer- 



