298 [November, 



The food-plants of Eulepia cribrum. — Referring to the interesting notes on this 

 insect, pp. 255 and 256, I have reared it from Swiss larvae. In June, 1883, I found 

 the larvae at Orsieres, in the Dranse Valley, on a broadish leafed grass. There was 

 no heath in the vicinity, and I continued to feed it on any grass at hand, and reared 

 the perfect insect towards the end of July, the form that emerged being var. puncti- 

 gera. My impression is that it will take any kind of grass, as it was by ne 

 means particular in this case. — G-. T. Baker, 16, Clarendon Eoad, Edgbastoii : 

 October 6th, 1890. 



The-food plants of Eulepia cribrum. — In reply to the Eev. E. N. Bloomfields 

 query (p. 255, ante) as to the food of this species, I should say, from my oxperienco, 

 that the larvre feed on one, or both, of the two commonest species of Erica — E. 

 cinerea and E. tetraJix, — and not on Calluna vulgaris. On July 27tli, 1872, I first 

 met with Eulepia cribrum in one of the localities in which it then occurred, between 

 Ringwood and Wiraborne. Out of some three dozen specimens captured by me, 

 nine or ten were females, from which a number of ova were obtained. These pro- 

 duced larvae in due course, which fed up rapidly on Erica cinerea and E. tetralix. 

 On my return to Brighton, where I was then living, about tlie middle of August, it 

 was impossible to obtain either species of Erica within a reasonable distance of the 

 town, and the larvae were accordingly supplied with Calluna vulgaris, which occurs 

 on such portions of the Brighton downs as have escaped cultivation. The larvae did 

 not " take kindly " to their change of food, and by the end of September they had 

 all died. If the larvas of this species ever feed on grasses, it seems probable that 

 one or more of such heath-growing species as Aira flexuosa, A. caryophillea, Mo- 

 linia carulea, Triodia decumbens, or some species of Festuca, would be more likely 

 to be the food plant than Poa annua, which, although the commonest of road-side 

 and meadow grasses, and the prevailing " weed " of gardens, does not, in my 

 experience, occur on the poor heaths frequented by E. cribrum. — H. Goss, Surbiton 

 Hill : October, 1890. 



Nepticula larva in osier near Wegmouth. — Mr. Hodgkinson's note in the 

 " Entomologist " for the present month (Ent., xxiii, 324), viz., the breeding of "Nepti- 

 cula salicis from the silver-leaved osier, the larva feeding nearly at the tip, quite in 

 a difPerent way from the usual well-known salicis mine," leads me to record the 

 fact that I found, on October 12th, 1889, larvae of a Nepticula in the leaves of an 

 osier (I think, Salix alba, var.). 



The larva, whilst young, is of a bright orange colour, and makes a narrow ser- 

 pentine mine. It then becomes yellow, with a brown head, and the mine widens 

 out into a large blotch of irregular form, which sometimes includes the whole or 

 part of the narrow mine. 



The mine is occasionally at the tip of the leaf, but not invariably so, being 

 sometimes half-way down, or near the base. The cocoon is dull brown in colour. 

 The larvae wore much ichneumoned, as though I had, perhaps, a dozen or more 

 cocoons, I bred only one imago (on May 7th), which certainly appears to be salicis, 

 the larvae of which species are common on sallows in the neighbourhood. 



