164 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
only. This food was of course afterwards supplied to them 
exclusively, and on it Mr. Nicholls reared the first bred example 
in this country. I, too, some years after, viz. in 1877, success- 
fully bred the insect from eggs which I obtained from the 
St. Leonard's locality. I fed them, likewise, on the flowers of 
the above-named plant until they were nearly full-fed. Leaving 
home about this time for four weeks, at Deal I found it incon- 
venient to get this food, and substituted the flowers of P. anserina 
and those of bramble, both of which they took to readily, and in 
due time pupated, and five specimens emerged. Of course 
bramble grows quite as plentifully at Epping as at St. Leonards, 
yet I am quite of opinion that P. tormentilla is their natural food. 
That Mr. Scott should have failed to find any larve feeding upon 
it is not surprising, for when they are young they are most 
difficult to see, and that even when you are certain that they are 
there. Even when full-fed they are easily overlooked, for then 
they have a habit of falling to the ground upon the least disturb- 
ance, where their colour renders them most difficult of detection. 
The plant being of such a short growth makes it almost impossible 
to beat for them, and to search will be indeed a work of patience. 
—W. H. Tuewett; Greenwich. 
Foop Puiant oF ERaAstriaA vENUsTULA.— Dr. Réssler, in his 
‘List of the Lepidoptera of Nassau’ (1866), states, that according 
to Lederer the larva feeds on the bramble, Rubus /ruticosi. 
Both the genera, Rubus and Tormentilla, belong to the order 
Rosacee, which may account for the fact of the larva of Hrastria 
venustula feeding on T’. reptans, when supplied with the plant in 
captivity, although R. fruticosus may be its natural food-plant.— 
Atrrep Sicu: Burlington Lane, Chiswick, June 22, 1883. 
Torrrices 1x May.—On Easter Monday I took a ramble 
through the woods near Maidstone, but saw no insects, either on 
the trunks of the trees or on the wing, but I succeeded in finding 
some pupe of Retinia turionana in the centre shoots of Pinus 
sylvestris, from which I reared sixteen specimens ;_ they 
emerged towards the end of April and early in May. I was 
pleased to meet with this species again, having searched for it in 
vain for many years past. In April last I collected a quantity of 
the stems of Stachys sylvatica in Epping Forest, from which I 
bred eighteen beautiful specimens of Ephippiphora nigricostana 
in May. Pyrodes rhediana was tolerably common on Fair Mead 
