THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 17 



expression "neglect" is not sufficiently strong : it has been 

 repeatedly discouraged and condemned as useless. A change 

 for the better is evidently coming over us, and nothing can 

 possibly tend to foster this taste for the study of the living 

 insect so effectually as the publication of such splendid vo- 

 lumes as that now before me. 



Edward Newman. 



Description of the Larva of EpJiyra trilinearia. — I am 

 unable to speak with positive certainty as to the single or 

 double-broodedness of the several British species of the ge- 

 nus Ephyra. My friend H. Doubleday considers all of them 

 (with the exception of G. orbicularia, with the life-history of 

 which species he is unacquainted) to be partially double- 

 brooded, and that the autumnal specimens are smaller, 

 deeper coloured and more strongly marked than the vernal 

 ones. It is quite certain that out of a single brood of E. 

 punctaria, E. pendularia and E. omicronaria the great part 

 may appear in July and the remainder in the May following. 

 Those who arrive at conclusions hastily would doubtless 

 assert that these spring examples were the children, instead 

 of the brothers and sisters, of the July specimens. I will not, 

 however, venture to theorize on the subject further than by 

 reminding the reader that I have elsewhere published nume- 

 rous instances of this development of the same brood at two 

 seasons, the specimens disclosed in the autumn being almost 

 invariably infertile. The eggs of E. trilinearia are laid on 

 the leaves of Fagus sylvaticus (the beech), and the young 

 larva is hatched and begins to feed in about a fortnight ; the 

 great majority are full-fed in August and September, when 

 they rest in an arched posture, the anterior extremity raised ; 

 the head, anterior segments and legs closely pressed toge- 

 ther and forming a conspicuous mass ; the whole of the body 

 as far as the ventral claspers is slowly and regularly os- 

 cillated when the larva suffers the slightest annoyance. The 

 head is much wider than the body, prone, and notched on 

 the crown : the body narrow, slightly depressed, transversely 

 wrinkled, and having a dilated skinfold on each side ; the 

 anal claspers spread at right angles with the 13th segment ; 

 on all parts of the body are extremely minute scattered warts, 



