309 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE LOST PLEIAD. 



ENTOMOLOGISTS may lose stars as well as astronomers ; and the present 

 chapter treats of a very small moth which has not been seen for 

 upwards of a hundred years, though I feel quite as confident of its 

 existence as of that of any of our commonest and best-known 

 species. 



A curious ray of light on this subject comes to us from across the 

 Atlantic, the late Dr. Brackenridge Clemens having bred two species 

 of the genus Antispila from Iarva3 mining the leaves of grapes in 

 America. (Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phi- 

 ladelphia, 1860, p. 209.) 



The American genus Aspidisca, of which the larvae have similar 

 habits to those of Antispila (Proceedings Ent. Soc. Philadelphia, 

 vol. i. p. 81), has not been found in Europe. Dr. Clemens observes 

 that " the disk of an Aspidisca -larva is always fixed by a button of 

 silk to some object in the neighbourhood of the food plant, and the 

 pupa3 must be kept in a dry vessel after the disks have been cut 



