OBSERVATIONS ON TINEINA. 15 



Baron v. Nolcken wrote to me that, wishing to ascertain 

 if it were possible to send living larvae from the Island of 

 Oesel to England, it had occurred to him to try the expe- 

 riment with some larvae of Cosmospteryx Lienicjiella. The 

 Riga Entomologists had discovered this larva the previous 

 year, mining in the leaves of Arundo PhragmUes; and when 

 Baron v. Nolcken heard of this, he had sought in his own 

 neighhourhood amongst the fallen reed-leaves, and had found 

 one mined' leaf containing a pupa, which produced the per- 

 fect insect on the 19th June, and on the following day he 

 took a specimen of the imago. 



After thus ascertainijig the locality for the insect, he had 

 been able to collect a considerable number of the larvae, and 

 had observed that they often quitted their old mines to com- 

 mence new ones, and he found that the best mode, of treat- 

 ment for rearing them was to place the reed-leaves in wet 

 sand and to cover them over with an inverted tumbler. 



The arrival of these larvae in a moribund state, though 

 duly announced with proper expressions of grief to the sender, 

 was notwithstanding an event of considerable importance to 

 British Entomologists. We saw the larvte and became ac- 

 quainted with the mines, and I at once forwarded samples of 

 them to the Hon. Thomas De Grey and to Mr. Thomas 

 Brown, who I thought were likely to have opportunities of 

 searching foi- the larvae in the known haunts of Cosmopte- 

 ryx Lienif/iella at Wicken Fen. 



Nor was I disappointed. On the 24th September I heard 

 from Mr. De Grey as follows: — "I now send you about 

 twenty larvae of Cosmopteryx Lienigiella of all ages and 

 sizes. On going down to the fen this evening I was pro- 

 ceeding to make my way to a spot where I took the perfect 

 insect in July, but before I was ten yards into the fen the 

 conspicuous blotch made by these larvai caught my eye, and 



