DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES OF CONSPICUOUS SPECIES 261 



lower half is often indistinct, and its outer edge is 

 always undefined. 



The larva is dull olive-green, with the head pale 

 brown, and the second segment black ; the spots are 

 whitish, with black centres ; it feeds in May and June 

 on almost every plant you can think of, and is a great 

 pest to the incipient collector of micro-larvae ; it draws 

 a few leaves together and forms an almost globular 

 apartment, in which when disturbed it will be found 

 coiled up in a ring and extremely sluggish ; the young 

 larva is a leaf-miner, feeding below the cuticle of the 

 leaf, and in that state it is constantly being taken home 

 as a prize, as a new mining larva, by those inexperienced 

 in the habits of the creature. The closely allied C. 

 virgaureana has habits precisely similar. 



The perfect insect appears in June and July, and may 

 be met with by thousands everywhere. 



FAMILY VIII. 

 SERICORIS LITTORALIS. 



(Plate XIV., Fig. 7.) 



This coast species has occurred in a variety of loca- 

 lities amongst its food plant, Statice armeria, from 

 Essex to the north of Ireland; when met with, it is 

 generally by no means rare. 



The expansion of the wings is rather more than ^ 

 inch. The fore-wings are of a whitish-grey, with a dark 

 greyish-brown patch at the base, which terminates in 

 a very distinct darker blotch from the inner margin, 

 reaching a little above the fold, and having its hinder 

 edge nearly perpendicular to the inner margin ; a little 

 beyond the middle is a slightly oblique greyish-brown 



