202 [September, 



CONCHFLIS DEGEEYANA, McL. : AN ENiaMA. 

 BY THE RIGHT HON. LORD WALSINGHAM, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. 



Has this species an alias like Mr. Hyde, or a double like tlie hero 

 of the Lyons mail ? 



Specimens apparently undistinguishable from each other have 

 certainly been bred from larvse feeding in two widely distinct plants. 

 Mr. Warren, who has bred it from seeds, and possibly flowers, of 

 Linaria vulgaris, describes the larva as pale yellow, and as burrowing 

 into the ground to pupate, although he mentions a single specimen 

 which must have become a " pupa in a^owjer-head." He made these 

 observations following the line indicated by Mr. Barrett, w^ho recorded 

 (Ent. Mo. Mag., XI, 195) that Mr. Bree had bred the species a good 

 many years ago from the seeds of this plant ; but Mr. Barrett himself 

 has always met with it among Plantago lanceolata, and had expressed 

 his conviction in 1870 that this would prove to be its food-plant, 

 although he failed to find the larva. From my observations of the 

 habits of the species I had always shared this conviction, and was 

 much surprised at Warren's confirmation of Bree's original discovery, 

 for wherever I have found it most abundant Plantago has been the 

 prevailing plant, and Linaria in many cases has been wholly absent. 



Finding a small larva feeding in the seed-head of Plantago lanceo- 

 lata on the 9th July, 1889, I gathered several heads, and from these a 

 single specimen was bred on the 20th (the empty pupa ease protruding 

 from the extremity of the seed-head), on the same day I made another 

 expedition to the place, and collecting more of the seed-heads, bred one 

 specimen on the 4th August and two on the 5th. Another batch of 

 larvae was accidentally destroyed before I was able to carry out my 

 intention of describing it, and the species having disappeared from 

 that locality, all further search has been fruitless. 



It is thus certain that there are two larvse with different habits, 

 the one on Linaria habitually descending to the ground to pupate, the 

 other on Plantago pupating in the seed-heads. 



In this neighbourhood the perfect insect can be relied upon to 

 appear within three years after any piece of heath or cultivated land 

 on the light sandy soil has been broken up and enclosed, whether 

 planted with trees or left uncultivated. It continues to frequent such 

 places for three years or more, but disappears when the vegetation 

 becomes thicker, even before the Plantago has been completely 

 smothered out. It flies o-i\\y just before sunset, and there are cer- 

 tainly two distinct broods, roughly speaking, one the first week in 

 June, the other the first week in August. 



