OBSERVATIOXS OX TIVEIXA. 169 



upper-side feeder. In the afternoon of Monday, March 2nd, 

 I endeavoured to take a coantry walk near Florence. I say 

 endeavoured, for although I went some distance irom the 

 town, on each side of the road were high stone walls from 

 eight to ten feet high, and rarely was there anything green 

 on the road side of these walls. Here and there I came to a 

 short piece of bank, where the Calendula arcensis was gaily 

 flowering, and where the last year's stems of Arundo aonax 

 rattled their long decayins: leaves. The brilliant purple bee, 

 S^yhcopa violacea, reminded me I was not in England, 

 though the bramble leaves seemed mined just as with us hy 

 Tischeria marginea and Xepticula aarella. A few scraggy- 

 bushes attracted my attention ; they reminded me rather of 

 sloe bushes, but were evergreen, with long thorns. I found 

 mining the upper side of the leaves of this shrub the young, 

 very young, larvae of a Lithocolletis. Here was a discovery — 

 my fii-st attempt at a country walk in Italy and a Lithoco- 

 letis larva on a plant unknown to me I 



Knowing by experience the extreme difficulty of getting 

 plants named correctly when in a strange country, and 

 knowing from the paucity of Entomologists in Italy I was 

 scarcely likely to be assisted in such a dilemma by a co- 

 Micro- Lepidopterist, I had taken the precaution of applying 

 to Dr. Hooker before I left London for the addresses of 

 Italian ButaulsUj and Dr. Hooker had very kindly given 

 me letters of introduction to several, and amongst others to 

 Professor Parlatore of Florence. By his assistance the plant 

 was determined as Jdespilus Pyracantha (in Wood's Tourist's 

 Flora it stands as Cratctgu^ Pyracantha, *• a thorny shrub 

 of the South of Europe, with undivided, crenate, persistent 

 leaves"). 



I think we shall not be wrong if we refer these young 

 LithocoUetis larvss, found mining the upperside of the leaves 



