DACTYLOPTUS WALKERT. 171 



grasses. Very common in many parts of Cheshire ; 

 and I have also met with it freely along the coast from 

 Wolferton to Hunstanton, in Norfolk. Mr. Tomlin 

 has taken it at Wicken Fen, and Mr. C. W. Dale has 

 sent to me a male which he captured on the wing in a 

 grass field at G-ranvilles Wooton. 



Distribution. Not recorded outside the British Isles. 



Habits. The females usually fix themselves upon 

 the broad leaves of the grasses, but on the slightest 

 disturbance they fall to the ground, and are then very 

 active. At the period of parturition they wedge them- 

 selves in between the leaves in the crown of the plant 

 (fig. 10), and there construct their ovisacs and lay their 

 eggs. So far as I have been able to ascertain, the 

 larva? do not hatch until the following spring. 



The males of the second stage fix themselves 

 between the leaf-sheaths and the flowering stems 

 (fig. 9), where, after secreting a small quantity of 

 short, cottony material, pupation takes place. The 

 males hatch at the end of July and during the first 

 and second weeks in August ; and all the examples I 

 have taken in a state of nature were also hidden 

 beneath the leaf-sheaths of the food-plant. Like the 

 males of D. citri, they were very sluggish. 



The large cephalic appendage to the adult female 

 gives it a very singular appearance, and I believe that 

 I am right in saying that no other species of Dacty- 

 lo/n'us is ornamented with such an enormous mass of 

 secretion. The long hairs on the underside of the 

 femora are also a mark of distinction, and the antenna 

 of the male afford another distinguishing character, 

 being twice the length of those of D. citri. 



The insects evidently prefer the grass plants at the 

 foot of hedgerows, where the grass is invariably lanky 

 and drawn. I have found them on both the north 

 and south sides of the hedgerows in Cheshire ; while 

 those from the Norfolk coast were chiefly on coarse 

 plants growing in little hollows among other vegeta- 

 tion. I should add, however, that all the males which 



