NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 17 



have deterred the practical entomologist from making known the 

 results of his field-work. There does not appear to be any reason to 

 suppose that the Committee had, or have, any intention of interfering 

 with the legitimate pursuits of the collector. It is therefore to be 

 hoped that entomologists who have the good fortune to obtain species 

 that are at all above the common or garden kind will not refrain from 

 publishing the fact for general information. — Richard South ; 100, 

 Ritherdon Road, Upper Tooting, S.W. 



Note on Cossus ligniperda. — There is a fact in the life-history 

 of C. Ugniperda which is common in my experience, although it is only 

 mentioned by one entomological work among those with which I am 

 acquainted. The description, in brief, generally given in books is that 

 the creature lives for four years in the larval stage, and that each 

 winter the larva makes a cocoon of silk mixed with wood fragments, 

 within the tree in which it resides, the final cocoon being placed in its 

 tunnel near the exterior of the tree. The Rev. J. Gr. Wood, in 

 ' Insects at Home,' mentions that in the ' Entomologist ' for August, 

 1868 (iv. 121), Miss Newman records the finding of a cocoon of 

 C. Ugniperda, in April, in the middle of an arable field. The cocoon 

 was made with earth instead of wood-chips. The moth emerged 

 in the following June. It is my experience that it is quite common for 

 the larvas to bury themselves in the ground, both to pass the winter 

 (when not full grown) and to pupate. For several years past no 

 summer and autumn have gone by without some of these larvas being 

 brought to me by gardeners who have dug them up. They are also, 

 here, very frequently found at the end of the summer, wandering 

 across roads and gardens (presumably in search of suitable spots in 

 which they may bury themselves). I may add that the majority of 

 the larvae thus found, and of those dug up, are full-fed. In no case 

 have I found, or had brought to me, a very small larva. — Albert May; 

 Hayling Island, Hants. 



[There appears to be no doubt that larvaa of C. Ugniperda do, 

 perhaps not infrequently, leave their burrowings in trees and enter the 

 earth to pupate. Newhian (Entom. vi. 487), in reply to a question 

 on the subject, states that he found a larva " under ground in a 

 cocoon formed of silk and earth, without a particle of its home being 

 made of sawdust." The matter again crops up in 1887 (Entom. xx. 

 231), when an example of G. Ugniperda was seen to emerge from the 

 surface of a lawn-tennis court, and, on a search being made, the 

 pupa- case was found. Another correspondent, in the same volume 

 (p. 274), remarks that although he had previously always found the 

 cocoons in wood, he had that year " discovered the pupa-case at a con- 

 siderable distance from the tree, just below the surface of the earth." 

 Then, in 1892 (Entom. xxv. 46) there is a statement to the effect that 

 a full-grown larva, which had been dug up in a garden, formed its 

 cocoon of earth and bits of cork. Other instances might be quoted, 

 but the foregoing sufficiently confirm Dr. May's observations. We 

 may add that Wilson, in his ' Larva of British Lepidoptera,' published 

 in 1880, states that caterpillars of G. Ugniperda occasionally go under 

 the surface of the earth to pupate ; Barrett, in ' Lepidoptera of the 



ENTOM. — JAN. 1899. C 



