62 CURIOSITIES OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



firs, oaks, and apple trees. G. malcella (Fig. 12) devours the 

 seeds of the hollyhock ; but G. hermanella (Fig. 14) is a true 

 leaf-miner. The larvae make dirty green blotches on the 

 leaves of the Chenopodium, or Fat-hen, and Atriplex, and the 

 moth, flitting over these plants in July and October, is of a 

 bright orange red, flaked with silvery streaks, and set off 

 by jet-black scales. These moths are scarcely microscopic, 

 being from six to nine lines in expansion. 



Cerastoma xylostella (Fig. 13) measures ten lines across the 

 outstretched wings, yet it belongs to the Micro-Lepidoptera, 

 and its larva, bright green, with scarlet stripe along its back, 

 will in July be feeding on the honeysuckle. 



The beautiful plumed head of the Ochsenheimeria (Fig. 15), 

 and the head of Coriscium (Fig. 16), an oak-leaf miner, plen- 

 tiful in April, June, August, and September, with drooping 

 and tufted palpi, show us the minute yet decided variations 

 which mark the species. 



Examples of different larva mines are represented in Fig. 17. 

 " Pondering on the hieroglyphics these little miners trace," 

 says Mrs. Lane Clarke, " words of infinite wisdom to the eye 

 that can read and the heart that can understand ; seeing how 

 in darkness yet perfect security the naked worm feeds, grows, 

 and develops a new and wondrous beauty of which it is 

 wholly unconscious, and of which for thousands of years man 

 was profoundly ignorant; we pause reverently before the 

 tracery on a rose leaf, the blotch on the laburnum, and we 

 look beyond the present mystery of our own life, oftentimes a 

 dark and a winding way, with a hope strengthened in looking 

 at the glorious wings of the hitherto scarcely appreciated 

 Microscopic Moth." 



