150 OBSERVATIONS ON TINEINA. 



Heinemann of Brunswick ; on the 28th of April last he 

 wrote to me as follows : — 



" Two years ago, when searching for the larvae of Coleo- 

 pho?'a niveicostella on Thymus &erp7/Uu7n, I found a small 

 case which was formed of a seed capsule of that plant. The 

 larva was also feeding on that plant, but it soon died. Last 

 year, when again searching amongst the Tliymrts, I found 

 some similar cases on the Thymus ser]ryUum, and others on 

 grass, which the larvas likewise ate. It afterwards appeared 

 that all the larvas went to the grass, then quitted the old 

 cases, bored into the grass, from which they cut out new 

 cases, when they were recognisable as the larvae of Coleo- 

 phora lixella. I believe that this is quite a novel fact that 

 a Coleophora larva when young should feed on a totally 

 different plant to that on which it feeds subsequently. I 

 have now observed that in all the places where I have taken 

 Lixella, or met with the larger cases. Thymus sevpyllum 

 grows amongst the grass." 



With this letter Herr von Heinemann kindly sent me a 

 number of the larvae. If the intelligence had come from a 

 less competent observer I should scarcely have credited it. 

 However, I was not long left in doubt ; the box contained a 

 number of small larvae in their cases, made of the calyx of 

 a thyme blossom inverted, with the long points sticking out 

 behind. I went into the garden, got a plant of Poa annua, 

 put it in a flower-pot, and turned the little strangers on to it; 

 in two hours' time nearly every one had attacked the leaves 

 of the Poa annua and commenced mining long blotches, 

 from which, in the course of a day or two, they formed the 

 ordinary elongate, grass-made Lixella cases ; the empty 

 cases of the young larvae, left attached to the gi-ass leaves, 

 can be seen by those who are incredulous like myself, as I 

 have carefully preserved such interesting specimens. 



