7(5 September, 



vwlgare" of Bertrami, as quoted above, he says, " in Achillea ptar mica 



and Tanacetum vulgare."* It wants a careful description of the larvae 



to decide the point. 



(To be continued) . 



NATURAL HISTORY OF MIANA EXPOLITA. 

 BY WILLIAM BUCKLER. 



"With much gratification I am able to record the interesting 

 discovery of the larva of M. expolita, and of its food-plant ; a puzzle 

 that had hitherto baffled all attempts at solution, has at length been 

 unravelled by the assiduous efforts of Mr. J. Gardner, of Hartlepool, 

 to whose kindness I have been indebted for the opportunities of study- 

 ing the larva, both in the past and present seasons. 



An attempt to rear this species from the egg was undertaken by 

 the Rev. J. Hellins in 1873, when I received eggs from Mr. J. E. 

 Robson, of Hartlepool ; and in this way a record was made of the 

 earlier stages, although but a single larva reached full growth, and 

 that disappeared before the change to a pupa could take place. 



The eggs laid on July 22nd, arrived on the 24th, 1S73 ; the larva? 

 were hatched on August 3rd, and w r ere put into a bottle at first with 

 various grasses, out of which they seemed to choose the garden riband- 

 grass, Phalaris arundinacea, var. ; so, in the course of the autumn, 

 they were placed on growing plants of this grass in a flower-pot and 

 put out of doors ; about the middle of October one was extracted 

 from its mine in the stem of this grass, and figured by me ; after 

 hibernation it was again extracted at the end of April, 1874, and again 

 figured and sent back to its food ; but after this it disappeared, and 

 so nothing could be published about it. 



Mr. Gardner kindly sent me a full-grown larva and its food-plant 

 {Carex glauca) last year, when I first bred the moth ; and this year six 

 larvae, more or less mature, on the 31st of May, and the moths ap- 

 peared July 13th to 19th. The plants of Carex were from six to eight 

 inches in height, and the habit of the larva is to eat out the very 

 heart of a plant working its way down to the white portion close to 

 the root ; and, as Mr. Gardner observed, when one plant has yielded 

 its nourishment the larva migrates to another, and of this habit he 

 had good evidence in some plants he found ravaged and deserted by 

 their former tenants. 



* There is now before me a specimen of Bertrami, bred by Lord Walsingham. The pupa was 

 found on a stem of Artwisio rampestris (there was no Tanacttvm near), which may prove, there- 

 fore, to be another food-plant. It has, for Bertrami, remarkably pointed wings. 



