230 SPECIES OBSERVED BY THE AUTHOR 



Euphorbia dendroides, and from this bush we soon collected about 

 thirty Nepticula-laYvse ; strange to say, though we looked carefully 

 on all the neighbouring bushes of that plant, we did not find a mined 

 leaf on any one of them. 



The larvae collected duly spun their cocoons; and I watched 

 anxiously for the appearance of the imago ; but the summer passed 

 away without any coming out, and I concluded the pupae were all 

 dead. The box containing them had long been transferred to my 

 cabinet of economies, when, chancing to look through its contents on 

 the 15th March, 1868, 1 found to my surprise a number of Nepticulce 

 had emerged and lay dead in the box, and one actually still living, yet 

 almost a twelvemonth after the lame had been collected. 



The living specimen was at once transferred to the killing-bottle, 

 and the dead specimens were duly relaxed, and set out to the best 

 of my ability. 



Last winter I took a walk with Monsieur Demole from Mentone 

 to Cape Martin, and found a number of these mines of Nepticula 

 euphorbiella scattered over a series of bushes of the Euphorbia den- 

 droides ; but on that occasion I did not find a single larva ; all the 

 mines were tenantless. 



The larva I have thus described : 



Length 2| lines ; pale amber, the dorsal vessel greener ; head 

 brown ; the second segment with a dark brown mark on each side, 

 formed by a prolongation of the hind lobes of the head. 



The mine is most elegant, forming a long, slender, tortuous gallery 

 with a slender thread of blackish excrement ; as the mine becomes 

 broader the excrement becomes greyer. 



The perfect insect has no great resemblance to any other species ; 

 it perhaps comes nearest to worn specimens of Trifurcula immun- 

 della, but is much smaller than that insect. 



The following brief description must suffice till I have a better 

 series : 



Exp. al. 2f lin. Head pale luteous, slightly mixed with grey. 

 Anterior wings whitish yellow, with numerous dark grey scales 

 irregularly scattered, but (in the only specimen I had the pleasure 

 of seeing alive) showing a tendency to form a dark fascia beyond 

 the middle, and a dark apical portion of the wing, beyond which 

 the cilia at the apex are whitish yellow, and at the anal angle pale 

 grey. 



I found one other Nepticula-l&Yva,, but did not rear the perfect 

 insect at all ; I first found it at Cannes on the 4th of March mining 

 the leaves of Cistus monspeliensis ; the following day I collected some 

 fifty of them, and found a few in the leaves of Cistus salvifoUus. 



The larva 1 have thus described : 



Length 2 lines ; pale amber ; head black ; the hind lobes of the 

 head show plainly through the anterior half of the second segment ; 

 and by the side of these and behind is a rather complex dark grey 

 mark, leaving a pale amber spot in the centre. Beneath is a row 

 of elongate lozenge-shaped brown spots. 



