14 COEN AND GRASS. 



life is for the caterpillars to feed for awhile on the soft parts of the 

 grass-shoots, to hybernate during the cold season, and with the 

 following spring to wake up and again feed, carrying devastation 

 before them, not only by the quantity of the softer parts of the grasses 

 consumed, but by the destruction of what, though not eaten, is killed 

 by being severed through. 



Their habit, however, of feeding at the lowest part of the haulms 

 or leaves does not in any way militate against their appearance above 

 ground, at times in such myriads as to cause the utmost local astonish- 

 ment or alarm to those not acquainted with the nature of the attack, 

 this gregarious migration, whether to undestroyed pasturage or for any 

 other cause, being one of the habits which causes the destruction of 

 many of the larvje, and also helps us to bring remedial measures to 

 bear. In some of the earliest observations on them, about eighty 



hvice. Dr. Eitzema Bos also mentions, in his ' Tierische schadlinge und nutzlinge,' 

 that the moths fly in July and August, that they lay as many as 200 eggs, and in 

 about three tveeks the caterpillars hatch ; and in his recently published report on 

 Plant Diseases and Injuries in the Netherlands in 1892—93, he mentions, in his 

 observations on Charceas graminis, the fact of the caterpillars icintering in larval 

 state being well known. 



To the above notes, from entomologists of the highest standing, may be added 

 the important observation by the well-practised Scottish naturalist, Mr. Eobert 

 Service, of Dumfries (see the 'Entomologist' for October, 1894, No. 377, p. 279), 

 where, in his pai^er on Charaas gi-aminis in Southern Scotland, he mentions that 

 in a lot of eight Snow Buntings shot some years ago on Crawfordmuir, he found 

 an average of eight or nine undigested skins of Charaas graminis in each of their 

 stomachs. 



We have thus a complete chain of evidence of the winter existence of the 

 caterpillar traced onward, from appearance of the moths to quantity of eggs laid ; 

 time elapsing before hatching ; number of moults before the caterpillars fall into 

 their winter torpor ; and also observation of their being found in January in the 

 crops of insectivorous birds who had searched them out of their winter shelters. 



I have specially drawn attention to this, as it is important to be rightly 

 acquainted with the early history of the grubs, and what would apparently be a 

 great misconception might arise from unconsidered reading of the notes by the 

 late W. Buckler, given in his ' Larvae of British Butterflies and Moths ' (Bay Soc), 

 vol. iv. p. 67), and reprinted from his observations given in Ent. Mo. Mag. for 

 February, 1869. Here Mr. Buckler mentions larvae of Charceas graminis, Helio- 

 phohiis popularis, and Luperina cespitis, which he deals with together, as having 

 great similarity, hatching " some time in spring, the exact date varying according 

 to the character of the season." But taking the whole of the passage, it certainly 

 appears to me that this statement may be supposed to refer to the history of the 

 larvae which he is describing from eggs sent him up to hatching-time, for he men- 

 tions the changes of colour in the egg before hatching out of the larvin ; and this 

 must have been in artificial circumstances, as he mentions the eggs being sent him, 

 and that he reared each species twice over to make sure of the distinctive markings. 

 This is a very important point for consideration, and can hardly in any way be 

 considered to militate against the correctness of the long-recorded observations in 

 natural circumstances. 



