ANSWERS TO ENIGMAS. 



83 



Answers to Enigmas in the Entomologist's Companion. 



In the pursuit of scientific truth, intermediate between 

 what we do know, and what we do not know, there is always 

 a certain extent of debateable ground, where the unknown is 

 dimly perceived, or obscurely shadowed forth. That which 

 is thus doubtfully visible speedily becomes clear, if the col- 

 lective attention of observers be called to the subject ; but it 

 is frequently difficult to do this, because, from the very fact 

 of our ignorance, we know not where to record what we 

 thus dimly see, yet, as we must place it somewhere, we run 

 the risk of putting it in the wrong place. For this reason, in 

 my volume of the Insecta Britannica, I abstained from men- 

 tioning many larvae known to me, because the perfect insects, 

 not having been bred, where was I to mention them ? In 

 the Entomologist's Companion, however, a work of less 

 pretension, I endeavoured to publish every scrap of infor- 

 mation I possessed ; consequently many larvae are there 

 recorded of which the perfect insects were then unknown to 

 me. These, to a reader of that book, appear as enigmas ; 

 many of these I can now answer, but some yet remain 

 unsolved. The references to the Entomologist's Companion 

 are to the second edition. 



E. C, p. 53. "A larva mining the leaves of the dog- 

 wood," is that of Elachista Treitschkiella ; see ante, p. 78. 



E. C, p. 59. "A singular polyphagous mining larva, 

 perhaps not Lepidopterous," is Coleopterous, being 

 that of Ramphus jjulica7'ius. 



E. C, p. 63. " A larva making brown blotches in the 

 leaves of honeysuckle, in July," produced Perittia obscure- 

 punctella; see ante, p. 77. 



E. C, p. 65. " A larva found last November, in grass, 

 near Beckenham, which mined the grass, not like an Ela- 



