1888.] 161 



Arctia caja. — I am drawing and colouring plates of varieties of the above. 

 My own small stock is exhausted. If any of your readers would kindly lend me 

 any striking forms for the above purpose, I should be greatly obliged. Every pos- 

 sible care would be taken of them, and of course all expenses paid. — J. G-eeene, 

 Rostrevor, Clifton, Bristol : November, 1888. 



Melanism in Boarmia repandata. — This season I bred seven or eight specimens 

 of a form of Boarmia repandata, which, so far as I have been able to ascertain, has 

 not been recorded before. The specimens are almost absolutely inky-black, blacker, 

 indeed (when placed side by side), than the well-known black form of Amphidasis 

 betularia. I found the form rather commonly in a fir wood near this town in 1887, 

 the larva? having evidently fed on the undergrowth of bilberry ; but as the speci- 

 mens were mostly worn, I reserved several of the females to obtain eggs, and was 

 much more than repaid for the trouble expended on .wintering the larvse, when the 

 imagines appeared this year. A dark form, known, I believe, as the variety destri- 

 garia, is not uncommon, in some both northern and southern localities, but that 

 form always has a strong brown tinge, which, in my specimens, is totally absent ; in 

 one or two specimens I bred, evidently a paler form of the same variety, the tendency 

 is to slate colour. I must add, however, that from the same broods, I bred a much 

 larger number of the variety destrigaria than of the more extreme form. — Geo. T. 

 Poeeitt, Huddersfield : November \Qth, 1888. 



Notes on the larva of Gelechia peliella, Tr, — At p. 106, vol. ix, of the Natural 

 History of the Tineina, Mr. Stainton describes the larva of this insect as " dark 

 chocolate-brown, feeding in silken galleries among the lower leaves of Bumex 

 acetosella." 



"When last spring I found some larva? thus feeding, but pale whitish-green in 

 colour, with black head and second segment, I took little care of them, but was 

 surprised to breed a pair of peliella ; Mr. Bird, who also took some larvse, bred six 

 or eight. Mr. Stainton, on being informed of the fact, suggested that probably the 

 larva he described had changed its livery before pupation. This year, however, both 

 Mr. Bird and Mr. Bower, as well as myself, have bred the species pretty freely from 

 the same larvse, none of which turned black before pupation. The only conclusion, 

 therefore, to be arrived at is that, though undoubtedly the real larvse of peliella 

 must have been in the plants of Bumex brought back by Mr. Stainton from Germany, 

 yet another species with a black larva was also there, and this larva Mr. Stainton 

 described as peliella, overlooking the real Simon Pure. 



The true larva of peliella is of a pale whitish-green, with black head, and 

 plate on second segment, having a quivering, tremulous motion when disturbed. It 

 lives, as he states, in a silken tube at the base of the plant, often extending along the 

 sandy surface, and then covered with grains of earth. Her.e it lies concealed by day, 

 issuing forth at night to devour the leaves, and weaving a few slight threads up the 

 stalk to the flowers, on which it seems to feed by preference. When quite young, I 

 found it mining the early leaves of the plant, making therein small white bladdery 

 spots, which assumed a pinkish tinge at their edges. — W. Waeeen, 13, Cheyne 

 Row, Chelsea, S.W. : October 15th, 1888. 



