Insects. 6901 



little difference in colour. When full-grown, and after it has changed its skin four 

 times, the caterpillar is l^- inch long and very stout, its colour green, paler and whiter 

 on the back, darker and richer on the sides and belly, where it is also thickly sprinkled 

 with minute circular black dots : the spiracles are white, with a black edge ; the head 

 pale green, with four white longitudinal stripes, the cuter ones broadest; a narrow 

 dark green line runs down the very centre of the back : on each side of each segment 

 is an oblique white stripe, bordered on each side with darker green ; all these white 

 stripes commence near the straight green line on the back, and each is continued 

 faintly on the segment next to that which it adorns : on each side of each of the three 

 segments nearest the head is another short raised white stripe : the twelfth segment 

 has a hump on the back, ending in a short blunt white horn, which has a delicate 

 black line behind ; from this horn descends a short white stripe, and below the spi- 

 racle on the same segment is another white stripe bordered above with black. This 

 caterpillar feeds only on the birch throughout May and June; it then descends the 

 tree, and spins. The cocoon, or rather web, in which the larva effects its change, is 

 attached to fallen leaves or twigs on the surface of the earth : some of the larvse make 

 shallow furrows in the earth, covering themselves above with a leaf; the web is made 

 of brown silk, and is constructed like open net- work, so that water can freely pass in 

 and out. The pupa is black-brown, and, immediately after changing, appears to be 

 covered with a slight bloom, like that of a ripe plum ; this appearance, however, gra- 

 dually subsides, and in a few days has entirely vanished : the pupa is scabrous, the 

 scabrosity consisting of numerous small and nearly confluent warts or pustules ; on 

 the case covering the antennae these warts are arranged in regular series, and have a 

 remarkable and very pretty appearance ; on the hinder segments of the pupa these 

 warts are changed into blunt spines or teeth : the caudal horn of the larva is still pre- 

 served in the pupa, is incurved, and beset with spiny warts which point outwards, the 

 incurved apex being furnished with about twenty red-brown bristles. — E. Newman. 



Notes on the Economy of Lepidoplera. — 1. Phtheocroa rugosana. May 25. Bred 

 this insect from a very tough cocoon, fastened to the inside of my breeding-cage, by 

 what larva I do not know. June 29. Took P. rugosana, beaten out of yew hanging 

 over breeding-cage in which first specimen occurred. Query, did it come out of yew, 

 and retire into breeding-cage, as it might have done through the chinks, to form 

 pupa? Doubtless, as I find from Wilkinson, it feeds on Bryonia dioica, a plant 

 of which grew under the yew tree last season and climbed amung the boughs. 

 2. Diloba caeruleocephala. June 19. A larva has just made a papery cocoon in 

 corner of cage, having helped himself to two F. nitidella cases, insects and all, where- 

 with to make it. Whether he ate the inmates I cannot say, but they never appeared 

 in the perfect state. 3. Coleophora vibicella. July 5. At French Wood took a 

 number of cases in pupa state, from some of which the moths were just emerging. 

 I found the insect entirely confined to a warm south bank on the edge of the 

 wood, where the food-plaut grew stunted. I never saw it in the wood, though the 

 plant was abundant, but of ranker growth. 4. Hyponomeula evonymellus, H. ma- 

 livorella and H. padellus. June 11. I have lately examined the respective larvae of 

 H. evonymellus and the supposed H. malivorella, or H. nialellus (Stainton's ' Tineina,' 

 p. 60). It is impossible to distinguish them by their markings, though one might 

 fancy the latter rather yellower. I shut up some of H. evonymellus.? (the spindle- 

 feeder) for three days with apple leaves, from the same tree on which H.malellus was 

 feeding; but they did not touch them. They both go into pupa about the same time. 



