NOTES FROM LA SAINTE BAUME. 183 



a rather tall egg, ribbed like most of those previously mentioned*, and 

 having a wide and deep hollow on the top in which the micropyle lies. 

 It is laid on the leaf of Stellaria holostea. Of this upright type is also 

 the beautiful egg of niveicostella, which is laid on the leaves- of thyme. 

 The shape is that of a cone, in which the upper third is inverted, 

 forming a wide and deep basin, like a microscopical volcano and its 

 crater, the rim of which is occupied by about fifteen large blunt teeth. 

 The walls are ornamented by a double system of ribs. This larva and 

 also that of solitafiella eat their way through the floor of the egg shell 

 into the tissue of the leaf without exposing themselves to the atmos- 

 phere. Mr. F. Noad Clark and Mr. Tonge have taken photographs of 

 some of these eggs. This minute sample of the Coleophorid ova shows 

 a surprising diversity for the same genus, or even for the same family. 

 We see a nearly flat smooth egg, a nearly flat ribbed egg (which 

 when laid on glass is placed lengthwise), then a low and a high 

 nipple shaped ovum strictly upright, n.nd finally an upright volcano 

 shaped egg. Though the development may be traced, the difference 

 between the first and the last is very great. For I feel sure that if the 

 eggs only of muriuipennella and uieeicostdla were placed before a lepi- 

 dopterist he would say that they certainly could not belong to the same 

 genus, and hardly to the same family. 



Muriuipennella hides its eggs in the flowers of Litzula, where it no 

 doubt escapes the eyes of many enemies, and so is not so much exposed 

 to the struggle for life as are eggs which are laid on the surface of 

 leaves. It follows then that this egg has probably retained more 

 ancestral character than those less well hidden. Its surroundings are 

 probably much the same as were those of the ovum of the primitive 

 Coleophorid. The ovum of omatipennella, whicn I have lately found, 

 supports this idea. The imago, very similar to our iixella, is totally 

 different from any of the rush-feeding group, but the egg, though 

 larger and tougher, is otherwise quite of the caespititiella type. Like 

 the eggs of this type it is well hidden, being laid deep down in the 

 calyx of Salvia pratensis. When the ovum is only partly hidden, as in 

 the angles along the ribs of leaves, we should expect some further 

 development, and we find it in the eggs of such species as fiiscedinella, 

 which are distinctly sculptured, the ribs probably giving the shell extra 

 strength. In those eggs which lie fully exposed on the surface of 

 leaves we should look for the highest development of which the genus 

 is capable. Among these we find the tall ovum of gryphipennella and 

 the orange egg of niveicostella, which reminds the observer of one of 

 those brightly coloured species of microscopical fungi that frequently 

 attack the leaves of plants. What other forms the ovum may take in 

 this family subsequent research may reveal, for it can hardly be 

 expected that the sixteen eggs here mentioned exhibit all the forms 

 existing in a family containing some hundreds of known species. 



(To be continued.) 



Notes from La Sainte Baume. 



By G. H. GUBNEY, F.Z.S., F.E.S., etc. 



I have just been reading in the current number of the Eut. Record 



Mr. Bethune-Baker's very interesting account of his captures la>t July 



at La Sainte Baume. I was there at the same time, and took one or 



two species which he does not mention as having seen and which it 



