208 



SPECIES OBSERVED BY THE AUTHOR 



Coleophora pyrrhulipennella. T. complanella. 



C. congeriella. Lithocolletis Messaniella. 



C. ccdebipennella. Phyttobrostis daplmeetta. 



C. chamcedryella. Bucculatrix lavaterella. 



Bedellia somnulentella. Nepticula aurella. 



StagmatopTiora Grabowiella. 



Elachista gleichenella. Larva 011 Lavandula stoechas 



Tischeria angusticollella. (CEcophora lavandulcet) 



T. margined. Larva on rosemary. 



Hyponomeuta egregiellus, Duponchel. (See ante, p. 172.) Monsieur 

 Milliere, on the occasion of my calling on him the day after my 

 arrival at Cannes, showed me some pretty heath-feeding larvae, 

 which proved to be those of this species ; on the llth of March he 

 took me to a locality where the larvaB occurred amongst the Erica 

 scoparia, and I had then an opportunity of studying their habits. 

 They are not exactly gregarious, but several generally occur on 

 one plant ; they spin slight webs in the upper twigs of the plant, 

 and in these webs form thicker tubes of silk in which they reside. 

 The full-fed larva spins its cocoon in its last habitation, and the per- 

 fect insects made their appearance from the 19th of April to the 5th 

 of May. 



The adult larva is above 6 lines long, bluish black above with 

 an ochreous line on each side of the slender blue-black dorsal line ; 

 spiracular line whitish ochreous, more yellowish on the anterior half 

 of each segment ; spots black ; head tawny, inclining to ferruginous ; 

 second segment blackish, with a central whitish line ; belly grey. 

 The younger larvso appear darker, the pale lines on the back being 

 less distinct and often interrupted. 



A careful scrutiny of these insects shows that they combine the 

 characters of the genera Hyponomeuta and Swammerdamia : the 

 head is smooth in front; on the hinder part of the head there is 

 indeed a slight tuft of a brownish ochreous, but this has a very 

 different appearance from the woolly-looking heads of a Swammer- 

 damia ; the palpi, also, are much more slender than in Swammerdamia 

 and more pointed, thus resembling Hyponomeuta : on the other hand 

 the form of the wings and their neuration is completely that of 

 Sw ammerdamia ; the secondary cell is not formed in the anterior 

 wings, and in the posterior wings the costal cell terminates before 

 the middle of the wing. 



The dense glossy scaling of the anterior wings reminds one more 

 of Hyponomeuta. 



Looking to the tendency to a rough head in H. stanneellus, Thun- 

 berg, and to the almost gregarious habit of the larva of S. griseoca- 

 pitella, Stainton, we cannot ignore the fact that neither of the genera 

 Hyponomeuta or Swammerdamia consists of species perfectly agree- 

 ing in all their characters ; and the combination of characters which 

 we find in H. egregiellus would seem to indicate that it may be 

 necessary to unite Sivammerdamia and Hyponomeuta as one genus. 

 Formerly, no doubt, the plan would have been to create a new 



