NEPTICULA ^NEOFASCIELLA. 225 



Schmetti run Enrojia, v., p. 853). Frey's diagnosis of N. aenenfasciata 

 reads as follows : " Capillis atris, antennarum conchnla alba ; alis anter. 

 dilute cupreo-reneis, nitidis, ad basim orichalceo-squamatis, fascia pone 

 medium obsoleta, recta, lata, cteruleo-renea, ciliis saturate griseis. 

 2.^'"" (Die Tinet'n, etc., p. 376). Heinemann, after redescribing the 

 species, writes: "This species, which we at first took for new, since 

 it did not agree with Frey's description, is, according to a written 

 communication of the latter, the correct N. aeneofasciella, since his 

 description was made from a pale captured specimen." 



IMAGO. Head velvety black. Anterior wings long, 5-6 mm. in 

 expanse ; the ground-colour golden-bronzy, the base purplish ; a broad, 

 vertical, silvery fascia beyond the middle, edged internally with a 

 vertical fascia of a more violet-blue than the ground-colour ; apex of 

 the wing purple ; the cilia purple at their bases, golden-brown in the 

 middle, blackieh-grey at their tips. The posterior wings and the cilia 

 are also pale blackish-grey. 



EGG-LAYING. The egg is almost always placed on the underside 

 of a leaf of Ai/riinonia eupatoria or Potentitta tormentilla (Wood). 



MINE. The first part of the mine forms an exceedingly slender 

 and voluminous gallery, and, in this stage, is very like the mine of 

 X. aurella. After the last moult it alters its practice, and then 

 excavates a blotch. Heinemann says that the larva makes a strongly 

 contorted mine, with a slender excremental track, that can hardly be 

 distinguished from that of A T . agrimoniae. Fletcher observes that in 

 small leaves of Aijrimnnia, and in those of Potentilla reptans and P. 

 tonncntilla, the mine becomes a large blotch, occupying the whole, or 

 nearly the whole of a leaflet. Nolcken writes : " The first part of the 

 mine forms a narrow, slender, very slightly tortuous gallery, with a 

 fine blackish frass-line, bordered on either side with pale margins. 

 The last part of the mine is formed very similarly to that of the pre- 

 ceding species (X. nyiella), but the frass is more distinctly granular, 

 and tends to separate into distinct grains or heaps thereof. As a 

 rule, the frass is so placed as to indicate the course of the gallery, but 

 in other mines a somewhat long, round blotch is formed, the frass 

 being heaped up at the base, where the widened gallery or blotch 

 originates from the slender gallery which forms the first part of the 

 mine. The blackish spot formed by this heaping of the frass appears 

 darker at the centre, owing to the greater massing of the frass pellets 

 there." 



LARVA. The larva is yellowish in colour (Frey), very similar to 

 that of .Y. aurella (Wood). Heyden describes it as follows : " Raupe 

 glanzend, glatt, durchscheinend, einfarbig gelblichweiss. Kopf gliin- 

 zend, gelb, mit gelblichbraunem Mund und nach vorn geschlossener 

 ]iogenlinie auf der Stirne " (Stett. Knt. Zeit., xxii., p. 39). 



COCOON. The larva deserts the leaf in which it has fed up in 

 order to pupate (that of Y. (ii/ninitnuie, which also feeds in leaves of 

 A. eupatoria, spins its cocoon in the mine), and finally makes its 

 cocoon on the surface of the ground. The cocoon is oval in outline, 

 rather flat, and composed of silk of a reddish -brown colour (Heyden). 

 Heinemann calls the cocoon almost circular, and says that it is 

 yellowish -brown in colour. 



FOOD-PLANTS. At/rimonia eupatoria, Pontentilla tormentilla, P. rep- 

 tann, and rarely on P, awerina (Fletcher). Torment ilia erecta (Wocke). 



Q 



