128 ' iNovember, 



ever, in the vessel in which I had expected Teatiana nothing appeared 

 but such small specimens of nervosa. I could not possibly conceive 

 that nervosa had two sorts of larvae so little resembling one another. 

 I thus began to suspect that I had got hold of the species most closely 

 allied to nervosa — the zdtimella of Stainton, which suspicion turned 

 out to be certainty when I referred to the description of the species in 

 Stainton's volume of the Inseeta Britannica. By the help of that I 

 was weU able to separate my ultimella from nervosa (two of which 

 species truly appeared amongst my ultimella). After this lengthy 

 introduction, which, however, is not superfluous, since it shows how 

 easily one can fall into error,* I pass on to the description of the larva 

 of ultimella, and shall afterwards point out the points of difference 

 between the imago of that species and that of nervosa. 



The larva of ultimella, of which I found no specimens smaller 

 than those which were nearly half-grown, which were quite similar to 

 the larger ones, is 20 millimetres long when quite full-grown, slender, 

 cylindrical, very little thinner anteriorly than in the middle, thus rather 

 different from the usual form of moth-larva>. The head is small, the 

 feet also ; the creature is, however, very nimble, and can move up and 

 down along the walls of its abode very quickly. The colour of the body 

 is a rather dirty pale sea-green without markings, the ordinary spots 

 are very small, dark brown, the head light brown, the anterior legs and 

 the thoracic plate very pale brown. The pupa, which reposes in a thin 

 white cocoon in the stem, is of a shining chestnut-brown ; it is com- 

 pressed like all the pupre of Depressarice, and has an obtuse tail-end. 



Thus one observes a considerable difference between the unicolour- 

 ous larva of ultimella and the gaily marked, much more slender larva 

 of nervosa, which will shortly appear in all its stages in the work of 

 Sepp ; on the other hand, the perfect insects resemble one another 

 closely, and wasted specimens are not easily distinguished with 

 certainty. 



If one places a series of eight fresh-bred specimens of each species 

 side by side, one sees that in both species the same variations of colour 

 occur ; there are brownish-grey, yellowish-grey, bark-coloured, pale 

 brown, and reddish specimens of nervosa, as weU as of ultimella ; the 

 design of the markings of the anterior wings is the same in both species. 

 Thei'e is, for instance, a small dark spot at the base of the wing, along 

 the nervures are small dark longitudinal streaks separated by pale 

 scales, a very sharply angulated pale streak indistinctly margined, and 



• To do this it only iieidect, for instance, that I, knowing the pupse of nervosa wore to be found 

 in the stems ot ttiose i)liints ot h hicli the larvge had fed on the flowers, had delayed my search for the 

 pupa; so long that ultimella had also assumed the pupa state, I should then actually have had nervosa 

 and vliimella coming out t^getlier, have OTerluoked the points of the diftereuce, which are not very 

 perceptible, and have taken all for one species. — P. C. T. S. "^ 



