2748 Insects. 



be found in plenty, reposing on palings and trunks of trees. Semioscopis Avellanella, 

 apparently frequenting birch, will be found in Dulwich Wood, on the trunks of trees 

 by day, or flying at dusk. S. Steinkellnerana will perhaps appear at the close of the 

 month, among blackthorn. Talseporia inconspicuella (larva) will now be found on 

 various palings, particularly at Penge. Micropteryx purpurella and semipurpurella 

 will swarm among the birches at Wickham and elsewhere ; the scarce unimaculella 

 will be sometimes found in their company. Plutella cultrella, a spindle-tree feeder, 

 hybernates, or perhaps sometimes passes the winter as a pupa, and will now appear, 

 occasionally resorting to the sallow-blossoms. Depressaria characterella will also be 

 found among sallows ; and various other flat-bodies will occasionally be stumbled 

 upon by those in search of sport. Ocnerostoma Piniariella will be found among fir- 

 trees. Gracilaria stigmatella is another sallow-frequenter which hybernates, as indeed 

 do most of the other species of this elegant genus ; and Elachista testaceella shows its 

 affinity to them by copying this habit, and flits about the leafless hedges by day and 

 night. Lyonetia Clerckella will sometimes be beaten from fir-trees, though hitherto 

 only the dark variety has occurred at this season. — H. T. Slainton. 



Economy of Tortrix Strobilella. — On the 10th of May, 1848, while searching for 

 Lepidoptera in a small fir plantation at Purley, near Croydon, in company with my 

 friend Mr. Waring, we took several specimens of a small Tortrix new to us, which 

 Mr. H. Doubleday has since found to agree admirably with the Linnean description 

 of Strobilella. Having noticed, on this occasion, many small moths flying about the 

 cones of spruce firs, I thought it not improbable that the larva? might feed therein : 

 last spring, therefore, I split open several, and at length found a small pupa in a cell 

 formed in the woody stalk of one of them : having little doubt this was the insect in 

 question, I procured a number of cones, and found more pupae and two or three larvae, 

 apparently full fed, all in similar cells to the first, the heads of the pupae being turned 

 towards a small hole, by which the larvae had evidently entered : from these I bred 

 Strobilella, from the second week of May to the latter end of the month. The larvas, 

 which are whitish with a darker head, appear to feed inside the cones while still un- 

 ripe and soft, and when full fed eat their way into the stem to change to pupae : when 

 the time arrives for the moth to emerge, the pupa forces its way out of the hole above 

 mentioned, and passes up between the scales of the cone to open air: the distance 

 thus to be travelled by the pupa, in the large spruce cones, is often more than an inch. 

 I happened to be looking at one I had split open, containing a pupa, when the moth 

 was about coming out : the pupa managed to get its head into the hole made by the 

 larva, and quickly disappeared : wishing to see how long it would be making its way 

 to the outside, I watched it, and in about five minutes the head of the pupa was pro- 

 truded between the scales about an inch from the cell it had left, and the moth 

 quickly came forth. In many of the cells I found the pupa of a small species of Ich- 

 neumon instead of that of the moth : the flies from these made their way out in the 

 same manner as the Lepidopterous insect, which they had no doubt destroyed. Last 

 summer I found the cells formed by the larva of this moth in the spruce fir cones at 

 Black Park, and no doubt it might be obtained in many places now its economy is 

 known. I was surprised that Mr. Douglas, who, through the information I had given 

 him, succeeded in taking this species, should so hastily announce it, more especially 

 as his note (Zool. 2504), read at the Entomological Society's meeting on the 4th of 

 June, contains nothing more than I had told all my friends a year previously, Mr. D. 

 amongst the rest. — Edwin Shepherd; Fleet Street, February I, 1850. 



