DORSET LKPinOPTERA IN" 1892-3. fii) 



Tliere is a somewhat rave plant, Suwda Jnificam, wliicli, with 

 its annual congener S. maritima, grows here and there in abund- 

 ance along the Chesil Beach. For many years past it lias been 

 known that a small moth was attached to this plant, not only here, 

 but also in Lancashire, Norfolk, and Essex, but it was formerly set 

 down as one of the varieties of L. imtabilella or one of the other 

 species of Lita. I believe that I was the first to breed this moth 

 in this county, having found the larva at Weymouth in May, 1885. 

 Mr. Bankes was just a year later. I therefore undertook to 

 describe it as a distinct fpecies, which it has been generally 

 admitted to be for some time past, and have done so in the before- 

 mentioned paper. The species of this group found on the Chesil 

 Beach are sucedella, plantaginella, ocellatella, instahilella, salicornio', 

 and the nearly allied obsoletella and atripUceUa. 



The descriptions having been published, I will not repeat them 

 here, but merely make a few remarks upon the habits and mode of 

 life of some of these -species. In the early part of April Siueila 

 fruticosa, which is an evergreen perennial, shows no sign at all of 

 larvae feeding upon it, whereas this is the time to find the larvie 

 of instahilella upon Atriplex portulacoides — another evergreen sea 

 shrub of low growth, and one of the most easily recognised of the 

 difficult Atriplex group. 



The larva mines a leaf of the Atriplex, completely eating out the 

 fleshy inside in patches, making the leaf appear whitish green. It 

 also spins up the leaves against the stalk to a slight extent. 



Lita sua'della burrows among the fleshy leaves of the Sua-da, 

 which are something like thick short pine needles, spinning them 

 down to the stalk so as to conceal it from view. The egg is 

 apparently hatched about the end of April or beginning of jMay, 

 and the larva is full fed at the end of May, when it leaves its 

 burrow to spin up in the sand or wood underneath the plant on 

 which it has fed, the moth emerging in July. 



Lita plantaijimlla, which comes nearest to swideUa, feeds as a 

 larva in a plant of plantain, Planta<jo coronojms being the most 

 usual species on the Chesil Beach. The egg being laid somewhere 



