88 [March, 



(1). M. polygonalis has never yet been taken in New Zealand. 



(2). An allied species {M. deprivalis, Walk., = M. maorialls, Feld.), whieli 

 might be confused with it, is fairly common ; but its larva, like those of the other 

 allied species of the group, feeds solely on Leguminosce, and rarely on any but 

 Sophora tetraptera,ifih\c\\ is a small tree, one of the very few indigenous Leguminosce 

 of New Zealand. It certainly would not eat corn nor tussock grass ; it is incredible 

 that such could be the case without my having heard of it. Ashburton is in the 

 district of Christchurch, where Mr. R. W. Fereday has resided and collected dili- 

 gently for thirty years without having obsei'ved any such phenomenon. 



(3). There is a moth whose larva is sometimes very destructive to corn and 

 various other crops in the way described, and is often very abundant in New Zealand 

 as in many other parts of the world ; this is the well-known Heliothis armigera, 

 Hb. When we remember that specimens of this insect have often reddish-brown 

 fore-wings, and yellowish tinged hind-wings with a dark posterior band, we shall 

 probably conclude that Mr. W. W. Smith has been misled by a very slight superficial 

 resemblance into confounding two totally different insects. Mr. Fereday has told 

 me how much the introduction of the sparrow has contributed to diminish the 

 numbers of this Heliothis, which formerly used to consume all the peas in his garden, 

 but is now quite uncommon there in most seasons. 



(4). Touching the flax industry, if it increases, flax grounds will increase also ; 

 only drainage and corn-growing would interfere with them. But very few Lepid- 

 optera (I know only of two or three at most) are confined to these grounds, and I 

 cannot but think that the " many of our finest species," which Mr. Smith expects to 

 become extinct in them, exist only in a fertile imagination. — E. Meyrick, Ramsbury, 

 Hungerford : February l^Uh, 1890. 



Nepticula pyri : a species new to Britain — From a few pear mines collected at 

 the end of September, 1888, I bred the following June two little moths, which, Mr. 

 Stainton tells me, are this species. For several years 1 had been familiar with the 

 mines, but could never find them in quantity sufficient to give much chance of 

 breeding the insect. They are besides of limited distribution in our orchards, and 

 are present only where these are situated on the limestone or on the brashy corn- 

 stones of the Old Red, whilst they appear to be quite absent from the deep clays, 

 which form the greater part of Herefordshire. Briefly described — the inner two- 

 thirds of fore-wing is fuscous, with a golden-brown gloss, the outer one-third purple ; 

 junction of the two being pretty sharply defined, and concave in outline from the 

 purple extending up both margins, but especially the costal one ; head red. The 

 egg is laid indifferently upon either the upper or the under-side of the leaf. The 

 larva and mine are hardly to be distinguished from those of oxyacanthelJa. — J. H. 

 Wood, Tarringfon, Ledbury : February 1th, 1890. 



Scoparia hasistrigalis as distinct from S. amhigv/ilis. — Mr. Tutt's note on Sco- 

 paria hasistrigalis in the current number of the Ent. Mo. Mag. (xxvi, p. 51), confirms 

 a suspicion I have long held — that many of the supposed S. basistrigalis in collections 

 are not that species at all, but merely forms of S. ambigualis. The true hasistrigalis 

 is so local, and apparently also so erratic in appearance, that Mr. Tutt's statement 

 to the effect that he has both so-called species in his cabinet from almost every 

 locality he has worked, is, I venture to say, at variance with the experience of most 



