152 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA.. 



the cheek-piece, whether these be paraclypeal tubercles or not it is 

 impossible to doubt that they are the jaws. The maxillae are triangles, 

 outside the labial palpi, obscuring them, or rather the labium, only a 

 little basally . They are but little larger than would make them equilateral 

 triangles, the base at the cheek, the apices at about half the length of 

 the labial palpi. They have a very distinct palpus at their external 

 angle. It is clearly continuous with them, yet is connected with 

 them by a non-superficial portion, so that they form an " eye-collar " 

 as they hardly do in other Psychids. The abdominal spiracles — 4, 

 5, 6, 7 (8 obsolete), are on high prominences towards the anterior 

 margin of the segments. Zeller says : " The pupa is light yellowish- 

 brown, somewhat shiny, the last pair of legs extend beyond the apices 

 of the wings in a somewhat sharp point. The rounded anus is pale, 

 shiny, smooth, without spines ; on the dorsum is a small, sharp, 

 light-brown point, in the medio-dorsal line and on the segment some 

 short bristles." The pupa-case is much protruded before the emer- 

 gence of the imago. 



Food-plants. — According to Gartner the food of the larva consists 

 of Parmelia pulverulenta which grows at the foot of the trees, in whose 

 bark crevices the larva hides, whilst Schmid gives Physcia pulverulenta, 

 possibly the same plant. Powdery lichens found on old trees, hawthorn, 

 &c. (Edleston). Fologne found larvae, in 1859, at Brussels, on oak- 

 trunks, and discovered that though they would not eat lichen they 

 cleared out the contents of a half-killed weevil, house-fly, Tortrix 

 ocellana,&c; and adorned their cases with the debris. Edleston notes that 

 on April 9th, May 14th, 28th, and July 9th, 1859, he found many larvas 

 on and near two poplar trees covered with lichen, some of the larva 

 one, others two years old, but no imagines appeared. On reading 

 Fologne's observation he fed them on bruised beetles (Pterostichus) , 

 houseflies, hawthorn, &c, on which they flourished until November, 

 1859, when they spun up for the winter. At the end of June, he bred 

 2 $ and 2 ? and some 20 or 30 other imagines during July. Those 

 that did not pupate he continued to feed on bruised beetles, and 

 earwigs as well as hawthorn, and he further notes that they also 

 devoured the bodies of Noctuid moths and of a specimen of Arctia 

 villica. The specimens bred were much larger than those captured 

 wild. Healy notes that a larva of D. herminata, found on an oak- 

 trunk in May, 1860 at West Wickham, was fed on houseflies and 

 small moths, which it devoured greedily, it had no green food and 

 it progressed favourably until its hybernation in August. He further 

 notes that the larvae never attempt to attack each other although they 

 will eat the scraps with which the outside of another case is ornamented. 

 We suspect that Zeller, in 1853, had already reached an almost correct 

 result as to the food-plant. He asserted that he did not believe the larva 

 fed on lichen, that its case was clothed with grains of sand and minute 

 portions of beetles, &c, which it could find on the ground, but not on a 

 perpendicular or very inclined surface. Wood has successfully reared 

 the larvae on freshly- killed insects, principally flies. A larva captured 

 at Witherslack, by Threlfall, fed up on larvae of Solenobia (?) triquetrella, 

 and emerged June 20th, 1878.- 



Time of Appearance. — The imago, in June and July, at Pembury 

 (Yv 7 eir) ; four bred the last week of April (Healy); June 25th, 1H52, 

 flying along hedges between 7 and 8 p.m., and July 1st, 1852, 



