1(3 I .Tune. 



both as regards the condition of the specimens and the various forms exhibited, will 

 always give the charm of novelty to a visit to this house. It is to be hoped, indeed, 

 that at no distant period the Londoner may be able to contemplate at leisure the 

 charms of a live Morpho or Urania, without going further from his home than the 

 Regent's Park. 



The Insectarium is under the charge of Mr. W. Watkins, already well known 

 to many readers of this magazine, and under him will no doubt daily increase in 

 efficiency and attraction, and so perform its main mission of instructing and amusing 

 the public When more experience in the working of the Insectarium has been 

 gained, it may also be possible to utilise some of the opportunities now afforded for 

 experiments in such matters as the effect of increased temperature or moisture in 

 producing variation in insects. It would also be interesting to experiment further 

 on the reproduction of Aphides, with the object of discovering how many genera- 

 tions in succession of agamo-genetic individuals (if the term may be thus used) 

 could be produced under circumstances favourable for their propagation presented 

 in the Insectarium. — W. A. Forbes, Zoological Gardens : M ay 10th, 1881. 



Notes on Micro-Lepidoptera. — Coleophora olivaceella. I was fortunate enough 

 last year to find cases of this rare insect at Armathwaite, near Carlisle. When first 

 noticed, attached to the trunks of trees near Stellaria holostea, they were supposed 

 to be cases of Col. solitariella, and it was not until the autumn, when I had time to 

 compare the perfect insects which emerged, with a description in a number of the 

 Entomologist's Intelligencer, that the truth was suspected. The larvse of olivaceella 

 appear to feed up in autumn and retire to tree trunks, and perhaps other similar 

 places, for refuge during the winter, thus imitating the habits of Coleophora 

 Wilkinsoni exactly. I have not seen the mine, as the larvse collected last Whitsuntide 

 and bred, and the insects collected this month have alike utterly refused food and 

 appear to be even in the pupa state. In a notice some years ago by Mr. Stainton, he 

 represents the mine as being greener than that of solitariella, and he found larva? 

 feeding in April, which is extremely puzzling. 



The cases are almost prostrate on their resting place and are, compared with 

 solitariella, shorter, stouter, and more yellow, dusted with greyish spots. The 

 imago is rather like solitariella, but is larger, of a darker colour, its wings broader 

 and more glossy, and when the series of each insect are compared the difference is 

 at once very apparent. 



Tinea argentimacalella. I think that Armathwaite has also yielded me the 

 larvae of this insect, as I found many delicate tubes amongst the grey lichens on the 

 rocks, tenanted by light green larvae with black heads. 



As I cannot find anywhere a description of the larvse of this species, this 

 must be considered as a mere conjecture, hazarded with the view of extracting 

 information from any one who may know. 



Elachisla hum His. This insect also puzzles me. Can it be the male of 

 Elachista perplexella ? The Manual says of it " ? unknown." Now in Brockholes 

 Wood, near Preston, I take yellow larvae feeding in Aira caispitosa, which produce 

 both the dark males and lighter spotted females, respectively E. humilis and per- 

 plexella, thus reducing the (wo species into one, whichever name has the priority. 



