NOTES ON OAK-GALLS AT KEW. 29 
Hind wing, shafts of feathers pale shining grey; fringes darker grey, long 
and silky. Head, thorax and legs white. July and August. 
Larva.—Length, 6 lines; attenuated posteriorly from 5th segment. 
Head smaller than 2nd segment; green, with a yellowish tinge; crown 
slightly freckled with brown; cheek spots small, brown; mandibles brown. 
Ground colour green, sprinkled with minute black dots. Tubercles, two 
dorsal rows (four on each segment) whitish, each emitting a star-like tuft 
of white hairs; subdorsal, one wart on each segment, with a star-like tuft of 
white hairs; spiracular, one wart on each segment, emitting a star-like tuft 
of white hairs, and two or three longer whitish hairs. Prolegs and claspers 
semitransparent, with a green tinge, and tipped with brown. Food, white 
horehound (Marrubium vulgare); feeds on the terminal leaves; rests on the 
upper surface of a leaf in damp or dull weather, but hides under the leaves 
when the sun shines. June and July. 
Pupa.—Green, with whitish warts and hairs; wing-cases paler green. 
thickly studded with short whitish bristles along the edges. Fastened by 
anal segment to upper surface of leaf of food-plant. July. 
Plate I., fig. 4, Aciptilia spilodactylus ; 4a, larva, enlarged; 4b, pupa, 
enlarged ; 4c, food-plant, horehound (Marrubium vulgare). 
I have to acknowledge my obligation to Mr. Carrington for a 
supply of the larve of this species, obtained from Mr. Rogers, of 
Freshwater, Isle of Wight. In 1879 I met with this “ plume” in 
all stages in the Isle of Wight. Horehound, the food-plant, is 
very local in Great Britain, and in some places its growth is of a 
most stunted character ; a few plants I met with in Norfolk were 
only about two inches high. In gardens, however, the plant 
usually attains a respectable size, and I have found it more 
profitable to search such plants, when they could be found, 
within say a two-mile radius of the wild plants. 
All the larve I obtained at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, were 
taken off horehound growing in cottage gardens, about a mile 
from the reputed locality of the wild Marrubium. 
12, Abbey Gardens, St. John’s Wood, London, N.W. 
(To be continued.) 
NOTES ON OAK-GALLS AT KEW. 
By R.. ALLEN RoLFe. 
In the ‘ Entomologist’ for March, 1881 (Entom. xiv. 54), some 
notes were published by me on the spread of various galls to 
species of Quercus other than Q. Robur, L., our common English 
