STUDY OF THE PHRYGANID^. 53 



the " cradle" of the study of these insects ; may our diffidence 

 of late years not cause that honour to pass from us as a thing 

 forgotten. A vast field is open for investigation in their habits, 

 and their preparatory states are on the whole little known. 

 Why should we not, from the inspection of the case of the 

 larva of one of these creatures, be able to say at once to what 

 species it pertains, with as much ease as a Micro- Lepidop- 

 terist can pronounce on the case of a Coleophora larva ? 

 Then there is their geographical distribution. In the old 

 works, ''London District," "Ripley," ''Hertford," "Devon- 

 shire," &c., constantly and repeatedly occur as localities, solely 

 because these happened to be the hunting-grounds of Stephens, 

 Curtis and Leach ; and the rest of the countjy was then, and is 

 now, almost unexplored. Our described species (not reckon- 

 ing the varieties of Stephens, &c.) do not exceed 110, and I 

 think I am not too sanguine in saying that a few years will 

 increase that number to 150, with the greater part of the 

 additions new to science. The angler knows well that cer- 

 tain streams produce this or that particular kind of fish, and 

 that a distance of a mile or two will afford quite different 

 sport ; so I should imagine that certain species of Phryga- 

 nidcB will follow the course of streams, and this especially in 

 the Isopalpi, which seldom fly far from the water in which 

 they existed in their larva and pupa states. Some species 

 are known to have a wide range over the Continent of Eu- 

 rope, and even to the other side of the Atlantic ;* but other 

 species, from some cause of which we are at present ignorant, 

 may apparently be restricted to spots a few miles in extent, 

 or occur only in isolated places, widely removed from each 

 other. 



* Limnophilus griseus has been received without any apparent altera- 

 tion from Haiti. Vide Transactions of the Entomological Society of 

 London, New Series, vol. 5, page 176. 



