Q [.laimary, 



of a much darker colour remains clearly mapped out, and will generally 

 serve, long after the larva has left, to determine to which species the 

 mine belongs. 



Larva of salopiella : 1st skin — whitish, with black head. 2nd 

 skin — slightly grey or smoky ; head black ; the usual black marks on 

 second segment appear, as well as a series of large square-shaped grey 

 marks on the under-side of the other segments, except thirteen. In 

 the mine it looks nearly black-, from the chain of spots and the full 

 dark intestine. 3rd skin — now more distinctly grey, yet the head has 

 faded to a pale brown, tinted with a little grey at its sides ; the black 

 mark on the dorsum of segment two gone, that on the centre remains ; 

 the chain of ventral spots has grown into a broad smoky-black band, 

 interrupted at the divisions. 4th skin — -whitish, the g-ey shade quite 

 gone, as also the ventral band ; head pale brown ; anterior edge of 

 segment two on both aspects tinted with brown. 



Larva of SparmanneUa -. 1st skin — watery-white, with a very pale 

 brown head ; almost invisible in mine. 2nd skin — sides and under- 

 parts of head begin to acquire a grey tinge ; still very indistinct in 

 mine. 3rd skin — more whitish and less watery looking ; head con- 

 tinues to gain colour, otherwise no change. 4th skin — whitish ; head 

 brown, with blackish sides ; the under-parts of the posterior lobes 

 plainly visible through segment two as a pair of large black spots ; 

 the marks on segment two, so common in the genus, appear now for 

 the first time, but are poorly developed, being little more than outlined 

 in brown. The steady gain in colour from moult to moult in Spar- 

 manneUa is very striking ; in purpureUn also the change, what little 

 there is, is in the same direction, but in the others, as in Micro larvae 

 generally, there is gain for a time only, and then sets in a decline. 



It will be seen that all the species described belong to the group 

 in which, in the perfect insect, the ground colour of the wings is 

 irrorated with another colour, and the markings take the form of spots, 

 but of the natural history of the other group, in which the irroration 

 is wanting and the markings are fascia% I have not a scrap of informa- 

 tion, although all the species, with the exception of aruncella, occur in 

 the neighbourhood. So far they seem to have eluded discovery by 

 every one, and when we do light upon them, they will probably be 

 found to differ considerably both in habits and form from our present 

 conception of a Microptcryx larva. 



Tarrington, Ledbury : 



Octoher lUh, 1889. 



