NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 245 



New Forest specimens of the same host. Oviposition takes 

 place in the autumn, and soon after the host larva starts feeding 

 in the spring the parasite larva emerges. It spins a cocoon 

 which is pendulous (suspended by a fine swing rope generally 

 some 10 or 12 mm. in length), brown, shining and brighter in 

 colour than those of M. pukhricornis, Wesm., M. melanostictus, 

 and M. scutellator, Nees. The imago appears some fortnight 

 or so later, and has occurred to me from April 4th to May 20th. 

 So far this parasite has not been bred from any other hosts, 

 though, undoubtedly, it is not confined to H. syringaria* 



In connection with the above I venture to transcribe a very 

 interesting letter I received respecting the same host and parasite on 

 June 5tb, 1911. — Claude Morley. 



I found some larvae of H. syringaria in the New Forest in late 

 March ; I got in all thirty larvae ; they grew a little until the first 

 week in April, and then each larva, before attaining its full growth, 

 hung itself to the food-plant or to the roof of the breeding-cage by a 

 thread of between two and four inches. The body was kept doubled 

 up. The next day a larva so suspended was found to have a pupa- 

 case of an ichneumon suspended from it. The larva was then 

 practically dead and quite unable to feed, and had become very 

 shrunken. They subsequently died from these ichneumons, whose 

 pup£e were suspended by some two to eight inches of thread, which 

 was coarser than that by which the larva had suspended itself. The 

 upper end of the parasitic pupa-case was dark, and in the lower part, 

 after about a fortnight, one could see the body of the ichneumon. 

 The fly emerged by cutting off a circular cap from the lower end of the 

 pupa-case, or in a few cases by eating a rather irregular hole through 

 the side of the case. The darkest specimens, the males, all came out 

 first ; and then the rather softer-bodied females, which had a 

 yellowish patch in the centre of the dorsal surface of the abdomen. 

 Out of the thirty New Forest larvae, not one was free from an 

 ichneumon, and in no case did more than one come out of each 

 larva, and they all acted in the same manner. Four larvae found 

 ten miles from the New Forest were unattacked, and the imagos have 

 come out. — E. E. Buckell ; Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Delayed Development of Wings in Lithostege geiseata. — 

 Delayed development of the wings has been noticed in various species 

 of Lepidoptera. Blenkarn wrote a note on it in the case of Chesias 

 rufata [obliquaria) and C spartiata (Proc. South London Ent. and 

 Nat. Hist. Soc, March 23rd, 1911). A delay of ten hours was 



"^ [I have examined Mr. Lyle's types of both sexes, aud feel no doubt 

 respecting the novelty of the species. — C. M.] 



