NOTES ON BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 143 



discovery in this country, Dr. Staudinger has written very 

 decidedly, in answer to Mr. Doubleday's inquiries, that the 

 insect in question is his Sesia pldlantliiformis (meaning that 

 of Laspeyres), and that it feeds in the roots of the common 

 thrift {Statice ar?neria);* so that, doubtless, at the time he 

 wrote his pamphlet " De Sesiis,'' he had himself confounded 

 two insects under this name, a probability which is reduced 

 to an almost certainty by the publication of a careful 

 description of a so-called larva of philanthiformis by 

 Dr. Assmuss, in the Stettin. Entom. Zeitung, 1863, p. 399, 

 in which this species is positively asserted to feed in the roots 

 of the common ling (bruyere). 



BOARMIA PERFUMARIA, Ncwmau. 



This close ally of B. rhomhoidaria^ so long looked on as 

 a cockney form of the last-named, at length takes its place 

 as a species in the supplement to Mr. Doubleday's Syno- 

 nymic List. 



With respect to the perfect insect, Mr. Newman informs 

 us (Entom. 246) that it is identical with the var. A. rkom- 

 hoidaria of M. Guenee, who thus (he says) "distinguishes it 

 from the normal form" — " Un pen plus grande. Teinte des 

 ailes j)lus cendree, conice,'\ nullement jaundtre. Ailes supe- 

 rieures plus aigu'eSf et plus prolongees au sommet. A ntennes 

 a lames moins couchees Vune su?' t autre et peut-etre plus 

 longues." 



The larva should certainly have been contrasted with 

 M. Guenee's description, instead of with Mr. Stainton's 

 highly condensed translation of the same. The differences 

 in the larval state are slight and not very satisfactory — but 



* See A. Libbach in Berlin Entom. Zeitschrift, iii. p. 79. 

 f The word " coriice'^ (whatever it may mean) appears to have been 

 substituted, probably by accident, for *'u«ie." 



