DORSET LEPIDOPTERA. 173 



numbers in Dorset, though it appears to have caused such 

 destruction of crops in some other parts of England. 



The larva, whose life history I am tracing, soon gets too big for 

 its flower and begins to eat the neighbouring flowers, seeds, seed- 

 capsules, leaves, and even stalks if it can get nothing else, and 

 always spins a slight web. in the flower head to conceal its presence, 

 which it manages to do very effectually, thanks to its green colour. 

 If touched or much disturbed it rushes out of its silken habitation 

 and on arriving at the ground often begins to jump and dance in 

 a most extraordinary fashion ; or occasionally changing its tactics 

 pretends to be dead, and curls itself round with its head to its tail, 

 when it looks very like a small leaf of its foodplant. When full 

 grown it leaves the plant on which it has fed and spins in some 

 convenient spot a beautiful oval rather boat-shaped cocoon attached 

 to a stone or other object, in which it turns to a pupa, emerging in 

 July after about three weeks. The moth seems to be of retiring 

 habits and to seek its winter quarters after a month or two of 

 liberty, as, with the exception of my first capture, I have never 

 seen it abroad after the early part of August. 



At the beginning of July I went over to Bloxworth, at Mr. 

 Cambridge's kind invitation, in pursuit of Tinagma betulce, a 

 species which has only been lately discovered and described by 

 Dr. Wood in Worcestershire. A figure and short history of this 

 species are given in Vol. XII. of our " Proceedings," so that I need 

 not again allude to the interesting mode of life of the larva. Mr. 

 Cambridge and I took a good series of the imago, as also did Mr. 

 Eustace Bankes, who had been there a week or so before. I also 

 found the work of the larva at Whatcombe in September, so that 

 the species is probably widely distributed in the county amongst 

 birch. Whilst I was staying at Bloxworth Mr. Cambridge 

 shewed me the place in which he had found the imagines of 

 Eupcecilia geyeriana in some numbers in the previous year, and I 

 was fortunate enough to discover in the seed-capsules of the louse- 

 wort (Pedicularis palustris), which was growing in profusion in the 

 locality, a few larvae, which I felt sure must belong to that species. 



