1893.] 81 



description of the larva, but none o£ those I took in September, 1890, 

 which may have been Eiidopisa pisana, emerged as moths. 



I am indebted to Lord Walsingham for his kindness in identifying 

 my specimens. 



Worthing : March \Zth, 1893. 



A CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS A LIFE-HISTORY OF PANCALIA 

 LEUWENHOEKELLA, L. 



BY W. H. B. FLETCHER, M.A., F.E.S. 



Some years ago, probably in 1888, Mr. Warren, who had taken 

 some specimens of Pancalia in the fen district, asked me in a letter if 

 any species of Viola grew in the places in which I found P. Leuwen- 

 hoekella. It happened that I had noticed that wherever I found that 

 insect some sort of violet grew, and that it had occurred to me that 

 possibly the plant and moth were not unconnected. At the time Mr. 

 Warren wrote I was inclined to think that the larva might feed on a 

 species of Veronica. On receiving his letter, however, I planted some 

 dog violets in a large pan, and in the latter part of May, 1889, im- 

 prisoned some female P. LeuwenhoeJcella among them. Towards the 

 end of June some very small particles of " frass " seemed visible in 

 the hearts of the plants. Early in July it was plain enough that there 

 were larvae mining the petioles of the leaves and turning out frass 

 through the small holes therein, as well as others depositing it in the 

 centre of the plants. 



A visit to the ancient British Camp, Cissbury, near Worthing, in 

 the second week of the r/ionth, enabled me to find larvae feeding in 

 the same way in a state of nature in Viola Jiirta, though too small to 

 be worth collecting in any quantity. On the 27th of the month I 

 went again to the locality, hoping to make a good haul of larvae ; the 

 only result was about five or six larvae and harvest bugs ad lib. One 

 of these larvae, just about to undergo its last moult, was in a short 

 opaque gallery of silk and rubbish between the roots of its food-plant, 

 and had eaten a large patch of bark from its underground stem. Some 

 of the larvae captured earlier in the month and kept in a glass jar 

 were then feeding in the same way. 



The larvae are very difiicult to find. The leaves of which the 

 footstalk has been mined wither and drop from the plants, and so do 

 many others seemingly damaged by sheep, rabbits, slugs, and other 

 vermin, while the gnawing of the bark by the larvae does not cause 

 the plants to flag. 



