FUMEA CASTA. 333 



the winter, that they then disappear and are to be found again in May, 

 when they crawl up for pupation." At this time the cases can usually 

 be found in abundance on tree-trunks, fences, bushes, grass culms and 

 similar situations in or near woods, and may be sometimes beaten 

 from bushes. Bacot also notes the cases as about one-quarter inch long 

 in January, situated chiefly on the gauze covering the tub in which they 

 are confined, but many are on the sides of the tub and on twigs. 

 Hamm finds them near Beading on trunks, fences, and foliage, from 

 the middle of May onwards, those found earlier being the empty cases 

 of the previous year; he suspects the larvae feed on, or near, the ground 

 on grass, &c, going to the trees only to pupate ; those cases found on 

 leaves nearly always produce ? s. Freer first observed full cases up on 

 trunks in 1899, on May 2nd. Whittle notes larva? found on slopes of 

 river wall, bordering saltmarshes, cases on tree-trunks (oak, birch, 

 elm, wild rose), and fences, in south-east Essex. Mrs. Cowl notes 

 cases on Erica, near Bournemouth ; and Dale on nut and alder at 

 Glanville's Wootton ; Bankes notes them as common in Dorset and 

 oscurring in many localities therein, though, owing to the inability of 

 the ? to travel, each colony is confined to a restricted spot. The 

 kinds of localities in which it occurs differ widely, e.g., on hot dry 

 rocky undercliffs, where the cases are found on the rocks, as there are 

 no trees, in shady Scotch fir plantations and woods, on our heaths, 

 and in the middle of a saltmarsh where there is hardly anything grow- 

 ing except quantities of short rushes. The spun-up cases are therefore 

 found on rocks, tree-trunks, rush-stems, &c, according to the nature of 

 the locality ; tenanted cases are only to be found in the spring or early 

 summer, when the full-fed larvae have left their feeding-places near 

 the ground and have crawled up higher to fix their cases for pupation. 

 He adds : " I daresay the imagines fly at other times as well, but at any 

 rate one of their flight times is in the sunshine at about 6.30 on still 

 calm warm evenings, and I have then attracted the $ cf in the saltmarsh 

 locality by enclosing virgin ? ? in small muslin bags and tying them to 

 the rush-tops." Burrows notes cases on posts by roadside at Brentwood ; 

 on grass and tree-trunks on high land (not marsh) at Kainham ; on 

 various plants — elm, grass, bramble, nettles, Ballota nigra, &c, grow- 

 ing on high and dry ground at Mucking. Montgomery says that cases 

 are common on posts in hedges at Ealing ; cases on upper surface of 

 sallow leaves, on bush growing in a damp ditch at Abbott's Wood. 

 Freer observed cases common on swampy ground on Cannock Chase ; 

 Atmore notes them as spun up on palings, grass-stems, &c, near King's 

 Lynn. Whittle observes that on June 15th, 1899, near Southend, 

 two cases were found on bramble, one on cow-parsnep, and one on 

 maple, whilst on July 2nd, when searching oak-trunks for larva? of P. 

 betulina, he found 22 cases of F. casta, imagines from which commenced 

 to emerge July 11th, 1899. Bang-Haas notes that in breeding this 

 species it often happens that one year one breeds only males, another 

 only females, more rarely both together, suggesting that the sexes in 

 the larval stage often select different places for pupation. D'Ailly states 

 that he bred the species from the egg, obtaining only one imago at the 

 end of the first year, the rest of the brood going over a second winter. 

 Milliere notes it as common in the Alpes-Maritimes in June, flying on the 

 borders of woods with great rapidity. [His description of the case 

 " composed of dry leaves," however, leads one to question his species. 



