306 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
covered forms a kind of bag at the end of the abdomen, in which 
the eggs are deposited and hatched. The young larve are like 
their mother, but differ in the number of the joints of their 
antenne, &c.; and the form of the male and female larve is 
somewhat different. Like other hemipterous insects, the mouth 
is formed for sucking. 
Orthezia Signoretti usually lives amongst mosses, or under 
decaying leaves of ferns and other plants; and, like Mr. Hart, I 
first met with it when looking for land shells. It is very sluggish 
in habit, scarcely moving at all when found, but tucking its legs 
and antenne underneath it looks somewhat like a small flat seed, 
or like the cocoon of some other insect. 
O. Urtice, on the other hand, lives more exposed, and occurs 
upon various plants, such as the greater stitchwort (Stellaria 
holostea), nettle, geranium, Huphorbia characias (whence the 
name Orthezia characias), &c. 
D’Orthez, who carefully studied the habits of this insect, says 
that the larva of a beetle attacks and devours the eggs in the 
maternal pouch, but without attacking the mother. 
Though placed amongst the cochineal, or scale-insects, 
Orthezia has many peculiarities, and is well worth studying. ; 
Perth, November 13, 1880. 
ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES, CAPTURES, kc. 
Derscrirrion oF THE Larva or AcIDALIA ocHRATA. — This 
extremely local species has not hitherto been recorded as bred in 
England. The following notes will be of interest:—The eggs 
are not apparently attached to the food, but dropped loosely 
amongst it. They hatch in a few days, about the first week in 
August. Having no information of food-plant, a general selection 
of the most probable was made, and placed in a wide-mouth 
bottle for their choice. For the first week, so little sign was 
there of any feeding that I feared I had lost them. After two or 
three weeks, although they made very little progress, still they 
were alive, and must have eaten something. Generally, most of 
the little larvee were on or near Galiwm verum flowers, one of the 
plants supplied. Still being so small the frass was hardly 
perceptible; as time went on it became more apparent that they 
ate only, or at any rate principally, the withered flowers of the 
Galium. During the month of August, as long as this plant 
