THE NEPTICDLIDES. 163 



operations almost entirely to that portion. The larva is without any 

 true chitinous legs, certain of the thoracic and abdominal segments 

 bearing membranous prolongations, analogous in structure with the 

 prolegs of other lepidopterous lame, but having no terminal crochets 

 or hooks. De Geer says that there are 9 pairs (Wood allows but 

 8) of these modified legs of which the third pair is very ill -developed. 

 The larva usually quits its mine in order to spin its cocoon, but those of 

 some species, such as N. iceaceri, N. septembrella, N. agriinoniai', etc., make 

 their cocoons in the mine itself. The cocoons vary much in size, shape 

 and colour, and the pupa, in common with those of most INCOMPLET/E, 

 usually protrudes its head and anterior segments before the emergence of 

 the imago. The pupa itself is a " Pupa libera," with the segments un- 

 fixed, and the appendages unsoldered to the rest of the pupal structure. 

 The minute imagines fly freely in the sun, each species having its own 

 particular time of activity ,, after which they rest in the crannies of the 

 tree-irunks or branches, or sun themselves upon the leaves. In windy 

 weather, they seek the shelter of fences, etc., near their haunts, and we 

 have seen the crannies on the trunks of the oak trees in Chattenden 

 woods, swarming with incredible numbers of N. subbimacidella (and 

 smaller numbers of other species) on such days. It is a remarkable 

 fact that, when the leaves containing the mines of these insects fall 

 to the ground in autumn, the part of the leaf containing the mine 

 resists decay long after the rest of the leaf has become withered, the 

 part containing a larva remaining green after the other parts have 

 changed colour. 



In 1771, De Geer wrote an excellent detailed description of the life 

 history of N. anomalella. In 1793, Fabricius described and named a 

 species of the genus, N. aurella. Hiibner figured and named two species, 

 but at present they have not been recognised. Haworth, in 1828, 

 gave good descriptions of 10 species, one of which is the Fabrician 

 X. aurdla, and diagnosed many others, which he treated, however, 

 as aberrations of the species he named. Zeller, in the his of 1839, 

 diagnosed 8 species, of which 5 were identical with those described 

 by Haworth, whilst in 1848, in the Linnaea Entomoloyica, vol. iii., the 

 same author established 13 species, of which 3 were new. In 1851, 

 Stainton published his Systematic Catalogue of the Tineidae, and this 

 contained 18 species of the genus. This was followed (1855) by the 

 Natural History of the Tineina, vol. i., in which 33 species were 

 enumerated. In the same year, Herrich-Schaffer in his tiystematische 

 Bearbeituny der Schtiiett.ron Europa was able to describe 48, whilst Frey, 

 in the Linnaea Entomoloijica, vol. xi. (1857), monographed 58 species. 

 In 1862, Stainton published the Natural History of the Tineina, 

 vol. vii., in which the total number of species is placed at 74 certain, 

 4 others doubtful, and mines of two unknown species from South 

 America. By 1871, Staudinger and Wocke in their Catalog, etc., 

 were able to list 111 species then known to inhabit the Palsearctic 

 area. Since then, several other species have been added, of which 6 

 are British. To Wood's papers on this superfamily (Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 xxix., pp. 197 et seq.) we are greatly indebted for much practical 

 information concerning the habits of some of the more obscure species. 

 It is a speaking monument to Stainton and his colleagues, that the 

 life-histories of the species comprised in this large superfamily are, 

 perhaps, better known in England and Germany than those of 



