•1'22 VAKIETIES. 



appear to be various. The specimens are more portable in 

 bottles or jars, and are less liable to fracture than when dried 

 on the coast. When required for the cabinet, no moisture or 

 other inconvenience arises from saline matter. The soft parts 

 left within the shell being saturated with spirit dry up with 

 little unpleasant smell and no decomposition. The mem- 

 branous parts are preserved and rendered tough. 



Very small and delicate specimens may be conveniently pre- 

 served and examined in the long narrow test-tubes used by 

 chemists, a small quantity of the spirit mixture before men- 

 tioned being added to each, and separating the specimens by a 

 small slice of a phial cork. Five or six examples may be thus 

 packed in a tube of as many inches. By wrapping up each 

 specimen in a small piece of linen cloth, and tying it round 

 with thread before placing it in the bottle or jar, the most 

 delicate fish may be conveyed any distance without injury to 

 the scales or fins. The same precaution would insure addi- 

 tional security with rare specimens of Crustacea. 



I am, Sir, yours, &c. 



William Yarrell. 



Ryder Slreef, St. James's. 



44. Habit of Microsetia ruficapiiella. — Sir, It has no 

 doubt been observed by many, that in autumn the leaves of 

 the rose-tree, on their upper surfaces, are very often marked 

 in various directions with broad brown lines, having a narrow 

 black one running down the middle. This curious appearance 

 is caused by the small caterpillar of a minute moth {Microsetia^ 

 Steph.) which feeds inside the leaf. When full grown, the 

 caterpillar is nearly two lines long, of a yellow orange colour, 

 with a brown mark down the back, the head very flat, and 

 sharp, and light chocolate. In this little caterpillar, the pec- 

 toral legs, instead of being pointed and corneous, as in other 

 Lepidopterous larvae, are soft and fleshy, gradually narrowing 

 from the base to the apex, which is truncate and broad. It 

 has likewise the power of drawing them entirely within itself, 

 which it invariably does every time it raises the fore part of 

 its body, drawing them in and pushing them out in regular 

 succession, beginning with the third pair, or those farthest 

 from the head. Their peculiar conformation, also, enables it 



