FEBRUARY. 23 



the moth or butterfly, nor honey for the bee, nor does 

 any grub or worm find its sustenance from them; and 

 if they are eaten by cattle, or by hares, and other 

 small animals, it is rather by accident than choice." 

 Now here is a sweeping assertion that mosses do not 

 furnish sustenance to any worm or grub, " neither 

 does any worm or grub find its sustenance from them.' , 

 Surely the authoress that wrote the paragraph,* from 

 which the author deduced the observation above 

 quoted, knew nothing of Entomology ; if she had, 

 the assertion would never have been made and quoted, 

 and if not, it was certainly very unwise to make a 

 sweeping assertion on the subject. 



Now, it so happens, that instead of no grub or 

 worm finding sustenance from mosses, many species 

 do, and not only species but " genera," as, for instance, 

 " Cr ambus ^ and "Eudorea" while several species of 

 Gelechia, together with Noctuce, Bombices, and Geo- 

 metrce, find sustenance from mosses, and, still lower in 

 the scale of vegetable life, from lichens. The follow- 

 ing species and " genera" of moths will show that 

 mosses and lichens do not play so unimportant a part 

 as food for the lower group of the animal creation. 

 The larva of— 



Lithosia ritbricollis feeds on moss and lichen on 

 trunks of trees. 



* III a residence of eleven months in Melville Island, Sir Ed- 

 ward Parry found only six species (of insects), because lichens 

 and mosses do not afford nourishment for the insect tribes, though 

 it is probable that every other kind of plant gives food and shelter 

 to more than one species. — Mrs. Somerville's Physical Geography, 

 Vol. ii. p. 139. 



