186 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



" The Zygaena taken by Mr. Harper is certainly Meliloti, 

 a species which I always thought would occur in this 

 country. I have seen five specimens — four males and one 

 female. This species is smaller than Trifblii, and much more 

 slender, especially the antennae : the wings are more trans- 

 parent and more pointed ; the black border of the inferior 

 wings is narrower; and the red spot in the centre of the 

 superior wings, near the costa, is always oval or ohlong, not 

 round as in Tri/olii, and it is rarely, if ever, united to the 

 spot below it. According to Esper, the larva feeds upon 

 various species of trefoil, and other small leguminous plants: 

 it is of a glaucous-green, pubescent, with the head and 

 anterior feet of a brownish black, the others are of the same 

 colour as the body; there is a longitudinal white line upon 

 the back, and each incision is marked with a yellow spot, 

 surmounted by a small black dot. The cocoon is elongated, 

 and of a pale yellow ; the pupa yellowish white, with the back 

 and wing-cases brownish black. — Henry Doubleday.'"] 



Microgaater nlvearins. — Last evening, as a great-nephew 

 of mine, Thomas Bell Salter, was looking into a dense shrub 

 of Thuja aurea, he found, on a dry twig in the middle of the 

 shrub, a caterpillar of one of the Geometridae, placed over a 

 bunch of eggs fixed to the twig, in the position shown 



a. Geometer larva, h. Mass of parasites in pupa, 

 mass is attached. 



c. Twig to which the 



in the enclosed drawing. On looking further we found 

 numbers of similar larvae, every one placed, in the same 

 position, over a similar bunch of eggs. As the claspers 

 were in every case firmly fixed on to the twig, and the head 

 invariably bent down in contact with the covering of the 

 eggs, I imagined that they were eating them, but I cannot 



