172 DORSET LEPIDOPTERA. 



About three years ago I first took amongst hawthorn in my 

 neighbourhood an Eupithecia, which turned out to be E. dodoneata, 

 before that time known almost exclusively as an oak species, the 

 only record of which I am aware being one of pupae found under 

 moss on hawthorn. It occurs at Glanvilles Wootton amongst oak, 

 but not commonly, whereas I have sometimes found it abundant 

 along a hawthorn hedge in my locality. It has this year been very 

 scarce, but I have bred it from hawthorn, the egg being laid on 

 the outside of the flower bud, like those of E. coronata and 

 pumilata. The larva feeds in the flowers as long as it can get 

 them, after which it takes to the leaves and pupates below the 

 surface of the earth, emerging in the following May. 



A very handsome, though not large, species, Plutella annulatella, 

 was until 1887 known to occur at Portland only from the capture 

 of a few specimens by the Rev. Adair Pickard. In that year I 

 took a specimen on September 20th and have since then taken a 

 few annually in July. Last year I found the larva feeding on 

 scurvy grass (Cochlearia officinalis), and as I succeeded in breeding 

 some of the imagines I had an opportunity of noticing the habits 

 of the larvae. I have not observed the egg, which is no doubt laid 

 on the buds of the Cochlearia in April or May by the hybernated 

 female. The larva is hatched about the middle of May, and 

 begins at once to feed inside the petals of the flower, drawing them 

 together with a few silken threads. It is then very small and 

 very active, green in colour with minute black spots, each emitting 

 a black bristle, the head especially presenting a remarkable 

 appearance under the microscope, owing to the number of black 

 spots and bristles on the green ground colour. It does not alter 

 much in appearance during its larval life, but retains to the end the 

 characteristic points I have mentioned, in which it bears consider- 

 able resemblance to its near relative Plutella cruciferarum, better 

 known to non-entomological readers of the newspapers as " The 

 diamond-back moth," which, always an abundant species in 

 gardens and elsewhere where Cruciferce grow, did not, so far as 

 my knowledge extends, occur last year in more than its ordinary 





