246 BBITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



tuft ; these plates have a rough anterior margin, as if minute circular 

 portions were excised leaving sharp points where the circles meet, they 

 fade into the colourless surface posteriorly ; the anterior plates (one on 

 each side) of the 6th abdominal are very faint, on 2-7 very marked, in 

 width about one-fourth of the segment when fully stretched. The 

 scales cover the whole zone of each abdominal segment, i.e., the plates, 

 the intervals between them, and a line or two of scales further back. 

 When fully stretched the intersegmental membrane (free from scales) 

 is dorsally about equal to the scaled area, ventrally it is decidedly 

 greater. The ovipositor is long and very similar to those of all the 

 araneiform Psychids, consisting of two segments and a long inter- 

 mediate intersegmental membrane (so often described as a 3rd 

 segment) with the usual rods. The eyes are large and black ; the 

 antennae are 12-jointed, there is a square plate between the eyes that 

 is almost certainly the labrum, a conical projection lower (the labium) 

 and two lateral elevations (maxillae ?). The tarsi have three joints on 

 anterior legs, four on others, but in some races the third joint is 

 anchylosed to the fourth and in others the process is complete and 

 there are only three tarsal joints to all the legs. The ? of L.fer- 

 chaultella like those of B. sepiiim and L. lapidella, has the hooks 

 of all the legs extremely strong and more curved or hooked than in any 

 other of these apterous ? s, in which the character of the hooks, has been 

 compared with them (Chapman). Bacot notes the legs as " very long, 

 the thorax bright brown, polished, and without scales, the abdomen, 

 soft, yellowish, with bands of rather broad dark grey scales (very dis- 

 similar from the hair-like scales of Fumea) ; small membranous 

 lappets on the meso- and metathorax represent the wings. The scales 

 on the 7th abdominal segment are longer, narrower, and more hair- 

 like than those on the preceding segments (still much less so than in 

 Fumea). The abdominal fringe appears to be at the extremity of the 

 7th abdominal segment and is composed of long silky yellowish-white 

 hairs [Described July 6th, 1899, from female newly-emerged from a 

 Broxbourne pupa] . 



Historical notes on Luffia ferchaultella. — No notice of this insect 

 seems to have been published prior to that of Stephens (already quoted 

 at length), unless the cases figured by Beaumur [Mem., iii., pi. xv., 

 figs, viii-ix) are to be so referred. His description of the larva said to 

 inhabit these cases, however, is not applicable to the larva of this or 

 any known Luffiid. There can be no question that the insect found 

 by Stephens, near Camberwell, is referable to the parthenogenetic 

 insect we now know so well, his statement that the specimens he bred 

 were like those of L. lapidella figured by Beaumur (loc. cit., figs 17-19) 

 but somewhat more attenuated, points clearly to its being a Luffia 

 smaller than L. lapidella, and since we have cases of L. ferchaultella 

 found as late as 1881 in the Camberwell and Peckham districts, by 

 Coverdale, we know that L. ferchaultella is an inhabitant of this dis- 

 trict, and have no doubt that it is the same species that Stainton 

 afterwards named pomonae. Of this, Stainton writes (Ent. Weekly 

 Intelligencer, vi., p. 28) that he took a case-bearer on the stem of a 

 plum-tree, at Lewisham, and bred therefrom an apterous female. The 

 case was noted as being rounder than that of 8. incumpicuella, and it 

 was suggested that it might be cospecific with the insect found on 

 fruit-trees at Bristol, and for such a frequenter of orchards he proposed 



