NOTES ON EMYDIA CRIBEUM. 103 



wiry kind of grass that grows on the heaths might be the natural 

 food-plant. Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher, to whom I have sent all the 

 eggs that I have obtained, found that the young larvae fed well 

 for a time on Calluna vulgaris, and has more than once reared 

 them on it until they went into hybernation, but never further. 

 One of the New Forest collectors — a member, I believe, of the 

 well-known family of Gulliver — told me that he had succeeded in 

 rearing the larvae on a mixed diet of Calluna vulgaris and lichen, 

 but that they invariably pine away and die unless supplied with 

 lichen in the spring ; he added that they should also be kept out 

 of doors. I know no one else who has bred the moth from 

 British larvae. 



From the above facts it appears probable that one reason 

 why E. cribrum is so extremely local, and the chief reason why 

 it has proved so very difficult to rear in confinement in this 

 country is that British larvae of it must have lichen, as well as 

 ling (which I am inclined to think is its usual food-plant) or 

 heath, when feeding up in the spring ; perhaps the necessary 

 lichen is a grey one that grows on the stems of ling and heath in 

 certain spots on the moors frequented by the insect. 



Mr. Fowler (J. c.) says he has noticed that E. cribrum is " not 

 confined to certain spots, but is generally distributed over a par- 

 ticular area"; some areas, however, where I have studied its 

 range carefully, are so very restricted that they may well be 

 called " spots." 



As regards the variation in the imago, I can fully endorse 

 Mr. Fowler's remark that his variety " 5 " is very scarce, for 

 only one example of it has ever fallen to my lot. My collection, 

 however, contains a still scarcer aberration of the male, taken 

 near Ringwood in 1890, which is apparently unknown to him. 

 The ground colour is white ; the second and third black transverse 

 " bands " are placed near together, and are both so exceptionally 

 broad that the usual pale area between them is reduced to a 

 narrow and much-interrupted white line, and they appear as a 

 black central double fascia, which stands out very conspicuously 

 against the white ground colour on either side of it. Among 

 the hundreds of specimens that I have examined, I have never 

 seen another example of this conspicuously black-banded form. 



The Eectory, Corfe Castle : 

 January 30th, 1899. 



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