222 



BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



in the deep purple portion of the wing ; cilia greyish, whitish at the 

 tips. Posterior wings grey, with paler cilia. [This species may be 

 distinguished from all its near allies by the indistinctly marginal 

 brassy fascia on the pale golden-brown anterior wings (Stainton).] 



Egg-laying.— The eggs are laid immediately under the edge of the 

 lobes of a hawthorn leaf (Wood). Nolcken notes the egg as being 

 probably laid on both the upper- and under-side of a leaf, so that 

 there is perhaps some variation in this respect. 



Mine. — The mine runs at first along the margin of the leaf, 

 ensuring by this means the subsequent advance of the blotch inwards, 

 i.e., from the margin towards the centre. Its gallery is short and 

 coarse, but it scarcely ever reaches to any great distance from the 

 edge of the leaf. The gallery terminates in a blotch, the frass being 

 brown in the gallery and black in the blotch (Wood). Frey writes': 

 " Ein prachtvolles Insekt, dessen Larve in ahnlicher, wohl nur 

 kleinerer Mine als N. gratiosella an Crataegus oxyacantha lebt und 

 gleich dieser Art gelb gefarbt ist " {Die Tineen, etc., p. 392). Nolcken 

 says: " The mine commences with several fine convolutions, placed 

 closely together, then for a distance the curves are extended and spread 

 quite apart from each other. The mine then becomes broad some- 

 what abruptly, and remains so for the remainder of its length (about 

 one-third of the total distance). Up to this point the mine is com- 

 pletely filled with frass, somewhat variable in its arrangement, but 

 forming generally a pale or dark-brown band ; the frass is rarely 

 granulated, although it exhibits, in some places, a tendency in this 

 direction. Until now the gallery has shown no paler margins, but in 

 the much broader final third, which has somewhat irregular boundaries, 

 unless margined by a leaf-vein, narrow pale margins appear, and soon 

 become very broad, owing to the frass remaining as a narrow central 

 stripe, no wider than in the early part of the mine, in some cases even 

 not being continuous ; the frass, too, becomes more granulated. The 

 larva escapes from the upper side of the leaf." 



Larva. — The larva is of a yellow ground-colour. Its head is pale 

 brown, with the cephalic ganglia dark brown, and, consequently far 

 more conspicuous than the head ; a pair of brilliant orange spots are 

 frequently present on the front edge of the pro-thorax (Wood). 

 Nolcken writes : " The larva is yellow, the head very pale brown, the 

 mouth-parts and sutures darker ; the intestinal canal yellow, tinged 

 with faint reddish." 



Comparison of the mine and larva of N. regiella with those of 

 N. ignobilella.— The larvae of these species occur together at about 

 the same time, and are double-brooded. The small blotches they 

 make at the tips of the lobes, with their yellow or yellowish larvas, are 

 certainly provokingly similar, unless attention be paid to one or more 

 of the following points, when their discrimination becomes easy : 

 (1) Both species lay the egg on the underside of a leaf, that of N: 

 regiella is laid quite on the edge, that of N. ignobilella well away from 

 it. As a consequence, the whole course of the primary galleries of the 

 former runs along the edge, whereas the gallery of the latter wanders 

 at first about the area of the lobe, before it reaches and follows the 

 edge, and though this wandering portion is afterwards absorbed by the 

 blotch, the fine frass-track remains undisturbed, and an evidence of its 

 former existence. (2) A T . regiella deposits brown frass in its gallery, 



