114 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



N. arcuosella. Other mines in the same plant produced N. aurella — 

 at least I cannot separate them from that insect. Amongst alder- 

 bushes in a swamp, in August, I happened to find reddish larva? 

 in reddish mines, which were suspected to be N. alnetella ; in the 

 latter part of June these emerged as N. glutinosce. Last year, 

 when breeding Nepticula betulicolella,It\iought that another species 

 was emerging with them from similar larvae ; but on a more 

 extended trial this year I found that the two sexes differ con- 

 siderably, and thus my doubts were solved. N. betulicola males 

 are rather smaller and browner ; frequently the fascia does not 

 extend quite to the costa, and the head is fuscous, with white 

 eye-caps. N. betulicola females are purplish from the base to the 

 fascia, which extends quite to the costa, and the head is yellow. 

 This insect varies in intensity of colour with the temperature and 

 climatic conditions of the season. Some years ago, in a hot 

 summer, I bred some as brilliant almost as N. alnetella. I had 

 last autumn collected considerable quantities of yellow larvae 

 blotching thorn, in order to find out the larva of N. ignobilella, 

 which I am unable to separate from that of N. gratiosella. The 

 result was that I bred in May plenty of N. gratiosella, no N. 

 ignobilella, and one N. regiella (in the room). As I had larvae 

 from Witherslack and Preston (viz., from limestone and sandstone), 

 I am unable to determine the district from which it came, but 

 hope to do so this year. I have previously bred N. ignobilella 

 from one of the localities, and it is very curious that none turned 

 up this year. The Nepticula that frequent thorn on limestone 

 appear to be N. pygmceella, N. oxyacanthella, and N. atricollis ; 

 those on sandstone, N. pygmceella, N. oxyacanthella, N. gratiosella, 

 and N. ignobilella. — J. H. Threlfall ; Preston, Lancashire, 1884. 



Larv.e of British Macro-Lepidoptera. — For more than 

 twenty years our lamented brother entomologist, William Buckler, 

 worked assiduously at pourtraying the British larvae ; many of his 

 figures I have had the pleasure of seeing, but strangers who did 

 not know him, when I say he was by profession a portrait-painter, 

 will be able to understand how it is that his drawings are so very 

 life-like ; they place every drawing of larvae that I have seen 

 attempted completely in the shade, when compared with his 

 beautiful productions. These have, since his death, been pur- 

 chased by the Ray Society ; they consist of about 4500 figures, 



