218 [March, 



the upper or under leaf, untouched, so as to preserve the wall of the 

 chamber unbroken; the blotching which results from this habit is the 

 best sign of their whereabouts. 



The larva of splendidulana is cylindrical, moderately long, attenuated behind, and 

 less so in front ; -with- a clear, semi-transparent and rather shining skin of a whitish 

 colour, obscured in places by the dark intestinal contents. Head, plates, and legs 

 deep black ; the spots also black and conspicuous. When full-fed it burrows into 

 any old woody substance near at hand, and goes at once into pupa. The pupal 

 chamber is cylindrical, and of nearly uniform width, but contracted somewhat at the 

 mouth, which is closed by a firm lid scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding 

 surface ; and is lined throughout with silk. In its excavation the woody tissue is 

 swallowed as it is bitten off, and drops from the larva in well-formed pellets of frass — 

 a very curious and not uncommon habit that prevails, I believe, among all Micros 

 that form burrowing chambers, in which the diameter of the chamber, or, at least, of 

 its mouth, is barely wider than that of the larva, and allows no room for the passage 

 of the material by the side of the insect. 



Coccyx argyrana and Hewsimene Jimbriana. — These larvas are so 

 much alike in habits and appearance, that it will be best to take them 

 together. Both are inquilines of the fresh galls of Andricus terminalis 

 (oak apple) and A. ramuli (woolly gall), from the end of June to the 

 beginning of August. They do not merely graze the surface, or eat 

 holes into the substance, but live in the very heart of the galls, out of 

 sight and out of reach, which explains why it is, that, common as they are, 

 or at least as is one of them, they so seldom fall to the beating stick. 

 Argyrana refuses the oak leaves altogether, it will starve rather than 

 touch them, and probably the same is true of Jimbriana, but I have 

 had too few of the latter to put them to the test. But argyrana is 

 not exclusively a gall-feeder. The moth is as commom here in the 

 spring on the apple trunks as on those of oak, and it was from apple 

 that my first specimens of the larva were obtained. In confinement, 

 they readily eat and thrive upon the apple leaves, and can even be 

 transferred to them from the oak galls, but their food on the tree is, I 

 suspect, the unripe fruit, for the reason that it is nearly as difficult to 

 beat them from this tree as from oak, which would scarcely be the case 

 did they feed between the leaves ; while all attempts to find them in 

 such quarters by searching — and I have examined the leaves over and 

 over again — have failed. Apple leaves, I may as well add, are a much 

 better food to rear argyrana on — whether Jimbriana also I cannot say — 

 than the galls, for the latter, at this time of year, are green and sappy 

 and most difficult to keep in a wholesome state. 



Both larva? have the soft, fat look so often seen in internal-feeders, and remind 

 one especially of the fruit-caters, Carpocajjsa pomonella and splendana. They are, 



