102 [April, 



cate, in the armature itself I can see no special characteristic. The 

 differences in the ? are the longer cheeks, the larger and more trian- 

 gularly shaped spots on the face between the eyes, and the slightly, 

 although almost microscopically, more roughened surface of the basal 

 segment of the abdomen. 



My specimens are all three slightly larger than those I have of 

 confusus. 



Three specimens on bramble flowers in August, Ilollington Wood, 

 near St. Leonard's. 



St. Ann's, Woking, Surrey : 

 March, 1890. 



THE LAEVA OF SWAMMERDAMIA LUTAREA. 

 BY J. H. WOOD, M.B. 



In a paper on the Swammerdamia, in Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. xv, 

 pp. 229 — 231, M. Eagonot, quoting von Nolcken, gives a short de- 

 scription of this larva, and mentions one of its food-plants. In the 

 following volume, p. 163, the name again crops up : the late Mr. Sang 

 recording the discovery of some strange looking larvae on mountain- 

 ash {Fyrns auciqmria), w-hich he thought might be S. hitarea. But 

 Mr. Stainton, to whom specimens were sent, was doubtful, as they did 

 not agree with von Nolcken's description, and he seems rather to have 

 been of opinion that they were S. griseo-capitella, notwithstanding 

 their black heads and the curious food-plant. In this Mr. Stainton 

 was, I think, quite right. I have myself found griseo-capitella on 

 another species of Pyrus, viz., torminaUs, showing that it is by no 

 means restricted to birch ; and I have also come across a melanic form 

 of the larva, in which not only the head and plate, but also the whole 

 body was black or greenish-black, the melanism persisting up to the 

 last moult, when it was exchanged for the natural green colour 



Yon Nolcken says nothing about the larva before hibernation, 

 and does not appear to have been acquainted with it at so early a 

 stage, a gap which I am able in a great measure to fill up. I find the 

 larvae in the autumn, living from six to eight or more together under 

 a web, low down among the leaves and twigs of bushes both of haw- 

 thorn and of mountain-ash. At the approach of winter, each makes 

 for itself a rather large slender cocoon, white, and closely woven, in 

 ■which it lies till it begins feeding again in the spring. I am doubtful 

 about the age at which it hibernates in the natural state, but in 

 confinement it seems to vary in this respect. In larvae that were 

 successfully reared last year, I counted two moults after hibernation. 



