150 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



manner he groups tritici, vitta, pujnllata, and ocellina. Mr. 

 Bentley was just as near to the truth nearly half a century ago as 

 we appear to be now. — John. T. Carrington; April, 1885. 



Pairing of Lepidoptera of different Genera. — Whilst 

 out collecting on the night of March 25th, with two fellow- 

 entomologists, I noted what seems to me an unusual occurrence : 

 — On the trunk of a beech tree was the male of Ilyhernia 

 marginaria {'progemmaria) coupled with the female of Tei^hrosia 

 crepuscularia, and at the same time there were no less than four 

 marginaria (males) crawling round and over the pair. The 

 female a'ejmscularia was a small specimen of that species. — 

 T. B. Jefferys ; Clevedon, March 36, 1885. 



MiM^SEOPTiLus scABioDACTYLUs. — Mr. South, in describing 

 the larva of MwuBseoptilus (Wall.) scahiodactylus (mihi), un- 

 wittingly no doubt leads us to think (Entom. xviii. 98) that this 

 plume larva has a " dorsal stripe reddish pink (or rose-madder), 

 most distinct on the 9th to 12th segments," when full-fed. May 

 I say that larvEe of M. scahiodactylus, when full-fed, have no pink 

 upon them, or only so little that I have failed to see it ? The 

 larvge from Folkestone, which " fed upon scabious," may 

 possibly be scahiodactylus, but if they are like mine in the larva 

 state then they certainly are not the same species as he calls 

 plagiodactylus, because, as he quotes me on the same page, 

 jdagiodactylus (Stainton and Milliere) has a broad, distinctly 

 defined and distinctly pronounced rich claret-coloured dorsal 

 stripe through all its larval life, and feeds upon the devil's-bit 

 scabious (Scahiosa succisa) in this country, eating into the central 

 unopened leaves, when young, in May, and afterwards eating 

 the radical leaves. The second brood feeds upon the leaves in 

 August, and appears in September and on into October, whilst 

 scahiodactylus feeds upon Scahiosa columharia in March and 

 April, and is on the wing in June and July; but as yet I never 

 knew a second brood of it. When young the larva is hirsute ; 

 the dorsal region is suffused with lightish pink, as seen through 

 the rather dense hairs. Each change of skin reduces the colour 

 of the pink streak, until, as I said before, the larva has no pink 

 upon it when full-fed, whilst the larva of plagiodactylus of 

 Stainton retains its broad dorsal claret-coloured stripe to the 

 moment of pupation. This will be seen in the figure of it in 



