1867] 127 



search I collected about 20 larvae, mostly full-grown. For these I 

 prepared a fitting habitation by cutting off a piece from the lowermost 

 part of the plants above the first knot, and planting them with one or 

 two roots in a preserving bottle in moist earth. I then placed my 

 larvae on the open ends of the stems, and had the pleasure of seeing 

 them quickly make a way through the shoot which closed the lower- 

 most joint of the stem, and the opening thus made, they afterwards 

 fastened up with some silk. I now placed my bottles in a cool place, 

 and left them undisturbed for about three weeks. 



At the expiration of that time I examined my nursery, and found 

 that most of the larvae had changed to pupae ; some were in their 

 cocoons still unchanged, whilst two or three, which had been the 

 smallest specimens, were now about full-grown, and still feeding. One 

 of these I separated in order to describe it. 



On -examining the cocoons and pupae, which were mostly in the 

 stems, I found, not without some surprise, that they completely resem- 

 bled those of Depressaria nervosa, which I had placed in separate 

 bottles, and which in the mean time had also changed, only they were 

 rather smaller ; so that I came to the conclusion that the new larva 

 was also a Depressaria larva, since the pupae of that genus show a great 

 similarity by which they may be immediately recognised. I had anti- 

 cipated something else. 



In consequence of this similarity, I now carefully collected the 

 pupae of the new species, put them on dry sand in a separate vessel, 

 and the larva which I had set aside for description, after carefully 

 describing it, I again supplied with fresh food, in order to bring it to 

 its change, which actually happened. Although I had imagined to 

 myself distinctly the difierence there ought to be between the images 

 of the new larvae (which I now suspected to be that of Depressaria 

 Yeatiana) and D. nervosa, I kept, nevertheless, the pupa from the 

 described larva separate, because I conceived the possibility that in the 

 stems which I had given to my new larvae, and which naturally I had 

 not opened, pupae of spun-up larvae of nervosa might occur ; for this 

 cannot be ascertained from the outside, as the larv» often close up 

 very adroitly the holes which they make in order to get inside the 

 stem, either beneath a knot or elsewhere. 



That I was not mistaken in this hypothesis of a mixture with 

 nervosa was, as I imagined, evident to me, when, after some of my 

 pupa; of nervosa had come out in my box, a moth appeared in the cage 

 in which I kept my new species, which I also took for only a rather 

 smaller, poor specimen of nervosa. To my great astonishment, how- 



