11 



part of the sign standing for the head and thorax of the larva. As 

 this last pair of ventral prolegs, i.e., those on the sixth abdominal 

 segment, will be the least often used, it follows that this pair will also 

 be the most liable to be lost, and it is this pair on the sixth abdominal 

 segment, or, as some writers might say, on the tenth segment, which 

 in Certain species is absent. .A careful examination of the larvse of 

 Coleophora fiiscediiiella, hemerobiel/a, and liinosipeufiella will reveal 

 the fact that besides the anal claspers there are only three pairs of 

 ventral prolegs, the sixth abdominal segment being destitute of pro- 

 legs. In the first-named species this fact holds good in the newly- 

 hatched larva, and I presume that this is also the case with the other 

 two species. Meyrick ("Handbook," p. 642) suggests that the rush- 

 feeding Coleophorids are the most primitive of the genus, and this 

 view is, I suppose, generally accepted by those who have taken 

 thought on the subject. The egg of the only species of this section 

 that I know is certainly of a lower type than that of C. fuscediiiella. 

 If, then, the early or ancestral Coleophorid larva had four pairs of 

 abdominal pro-legs we should at least expect to find a trace of the 

 fourth pair in the less advanced rush-feeding species. If we examine 

 the larva of C. caespiticiella, a common representative of this section, 

 we shall notice that the fourth pair — that is, the prolegs on the sixth 

 abdominal segment — are as well developed as the other three pairs. 

 It is the same with C. murinipennella. The fourth pair, however, 

 persists also in some less primitive species, as, for instance, in C. 

 bicolorella. 



Reaumur, Zeller, Frey, Stainton, and Heineman all agree in stating 

 that the larvae of the Coleophorids have sixteen legs. Meyrick has 

 not noted the fact that some specit s have only fourteen, and there- 

 fore it is to be presumed that he was also unaware of this fact. The 

 fact, however, appears to have been noticed by the artist who drew 

 the figures of the larvae of Coleophora limosipennella and C. con- 

 spicuella in Stainton's "Natural History of the Tineina" (vol. iv, pi. II, 

 fig. 2a, and vol. v, pi. IX, fig. 2a respectively), as both these larvae 

 are shown without pro-legs on the sixth abdominal segment. 



In conclusion, I will venture to prophesy that in the near future 

 the present convenient genus Coleophora will be split up into certain 

 genera or sub-genera, and we shall therefore have to burden our 

 memories with a few more names, but whether the study of insects 

 will be enhanced by this process we must leave time to discover. 



