1871. ; 155 
tering them at the side, but becomes a pupa externally. Muscus eats off the 
buds of Veronica chamedrys, and also becomes a pupa on the plant. Ptero- 
dactylus eats the flowers of Convolvulus. Lienigianus gnaws the leaves of 
Artemisia, leaving one membrane and rolling up the other, also making itself 
a tent of the leaf. Microdactylus feeds on the flowers of Hupatoria canaa- 
-binum, but enters the stem to become a pupa. Galactodactylus eats holes in 
the leaves of Arctium lappa, but rolls back all the woolly covering of the 
leaf to the edge of the hole as it eats, and assumes the pupa state close to the 
surface of the under-side in one of the deep depressions formed by the union 
of the ribs; and pentadactylus devotes itself to eating off the young shoots 
and leaves ae Convoivulus sepium, just as it is making a start to smother 
our fruit bushes with its luxuriance. There is all this variation in the few 
species with which I am acquainted : it would be interesting to know some- 
thing of the habits of the rest. 
PTrEROPHORUS (OXYPTILUS) TEUCRII. 
As Pterophorus (Oxyptilus) teucrii is only single-brooded, it allows 
itself more leisure for feeding than some of its congeners, and may be found 
commonly in the larva state from the middle of May till the end of June. 
The mode of life of this larva is sufficiently curious. It gnaws a deep 
round hole in the side of the stem of a young shoot of Zeucrium scorodoma, 
stopping the flow of sap, and causing it to droop, then crawls (slowly enough) 
to the heart and eats portions of the younger leaves, biting them clean 
through like ordinary larve, and never, I believe, gnawing the surface of the 
leaf like some of its congeners, nor entering the shoot like others. It does 
not confine itself to one shoot, but, after eating bits of several leaves, goes to 
another, which it causes to droop in the same way. In wet weather the shoots 
will recover and raise themselves, but if the sun is hot and the weather dry, 
they wither, and serve (like the shoots of spindle when mined by the larva of 
Hyponomeuta plumbella) as signal flags to show where a larva is to be found. 
Tn confinement, the larva makes no attempt to wither the shoot, but eats 
the young and full-grown leaves indifferently. Its principal object is, evi- 
‘dently, shelter from the sun, and it is so sluggish that it can hardly ever be 
seen to move when light is upon it. It is liable to a queer disease, which 
causes it to become distended, and die in the form of a little hairy bladder. 
Great numbers die in this way, and from some of them ichneumons emerge, 
but I think by no means from all. 
The fall-grown larva is five lines in length, cylindr ical, tapering a little behind, and 
alittle in front from the second ses ment to the head, which is a trifle smaller and 
rounded ; the segments appear very plump from the divisions being deeply cut; 
it is of a pale glaucous-green colour, with dorsal and sub-dorsal lines of full 
green; the tubercles are brown, bearing fascicles of numerous white hairs, 
those on the thoracic segments very spreading, and it is altogether very 
hairy.—W. B. 
The pupa-state seems to be assumed under any convenient object close to 
the ground, as the hairy pupa is not often to be found on the plants. 
