m 1 5 ,92p 



THE ENTOMOLO(SaEB-'"* 





Vol. LIII.] MARCH, 1920. [No. 682 



THE LIFE-CYCLE OF CACCECIA UNIFASCIANA, 



DUPONCHEL. 



By W. G. Sheldon, F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



Something is already known of the life-story of this common 

 and widely distributed Tortrix, but what is known does not 

 amount to much, and the supposed facts are not by any means 

 all correct. 



Barrett in * Lepidoptera of the British Isles,' vol. x, p. 181, 

 summarises what was known in 1905 — the date on which the 

 volume was published — thus : 



" Larva apparently undescribed. It is stated — I think by 

 every author who has written on the subject — to feed in the 

 spring upon privet {Ligustram viilgare), but no details seem 

 to have been given, and I have searched closely on privet, where 

 the moth occurs plentifully, without result. Yet I am assured 

 that it feeds in the young shoots and spins up between the 

 leaves. 



" Pupa glossy blackish-brown ; wing covers showing the lines 

 of the nervures ; segments smooth but swollen into smooth 

 ridges or rounded hoops ; cremaster rather long, beak-like, 

 hooked behind. Between the leaves when the larva has fed ; 

 its cocoon made with very little silk." 



One wonders at first glance where Barrett could have obtained 

 such a detailed description of a pupa the larva of which he says 

 was apparently undescribed ; I cannot find any authority for it, 

 and in its absence I can only suspect that he found a Tortrix pupa 

 upon privet, and assumed — I do not know on what evidence — 

 that it referred to the species I am discussing. 



It does not agree with the actual pupa of C. unifasciana, and 

 presumably therefore must refer to some other species. 



Spuler, in the third edition of Hoffmann's ' Schmetterlinge 

 Europas ' in 1908, ii, p. 248, writes : " The larva is reddish- 

 grey with black raised spots, the head yellowish, the prothoracic 

 plate dark brown, divided by a thin longitudinal line; the anal 

 plate is light brown ; it lives in April and May on Ligustrum, 

 partly on withered leaves." 



So far as it goes this description appears to be correct, but 

 both Barrett and Spuler entirely overlook — or ignore — the fact 



ENTOM. — MARCH, 1920. F 



