384 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



villosella, same shaped wings but rather more slender, the head, thorax, and 

 abdomen less densely clothed, pale yellow-grey in colour (in P. villosella inclining 

 to brown), the wings of the same tint, finely scaled, more glossy, with dark grey 

 fringes. The head, antennte, and legs as in villosella but in ccksteini the pectina- 

 tions are more prominent and somewhat more regularly arranged. The underside 

 similar to upperside, but breast and the costa of forewings blacker. The dried ? 

 appears to have a lighter brown head and to be more brightly coloured than villos- 

 ella. The S case is of the same form as that of G. unicolor, that is it is only clothed 

 for about half its length, ending in a long thin tube from which the pupa, on 

 emergence, protrudes itself about halfway. The case is clothed with short dead 

 grass-stalks which it arranges longitudinally but so few that they only cover the 

 case at its base. The ? case ends in a far shorter silk tube, but is clothed with the 

 same material, and has the upper half (unclothed in the <? ) covered with long thin 

 grass-stems that project far beyond the end of the case. The larvas, found in autumn 

 and early spring at Pesth by Eckstein, hybernate fully grown in tall thick grass-tufts 

 near the ground. Pupation takes place in March, the cases being attached to 

 bushes, roots, or grass-culms, in such a way as to stand vertically upwards, or but 

 slightly sideways. The imago appears in April. The ? according to Eckstein 

 always comes quite out of the case like P. villosella and A. opacella (Lederer). 

 [This remark concerning the ? suggests that the observation was made on 

 unfertilised or spent examples.] 



A. ecksteini is larger than A. opacella (7:6), the antenna with 32 

 joints, otherwise the species are very similar. The cases differ 

 materially, however, in that that of the former has numerous long 

 pointed rushes fastened lengthwise, their sharp ends projecting in a 

 point some distance beyond (rat-trap fashion) the emergence-end of 

 the case (Chapman). 



Egg-laying. — The eggs are packed closely within the empty pupal 

 skin. Weaver notes them as " laid in a mass and covered with a 

 glutinous moisture." Mrs. Cowl states that " the eggs are laid in 

 the pupa-skin, which is literally filled with them, the eggs being packed 

 exactly as are the ova in the roe of a herring." 



Ovum.- — Empty egg-skins (they cannot be called shells) are excess- 

 ively thin, delicate and transparent. Under a 1" objective, they look 

 just like collapsed empty grape-skins, only much more delicate. Under 

 a^", the skin is seen to be covered with minute granulations, with just 

 a trace of a rather large, but faint, reticulation, caused by the minute 

 granulations being absent or very slightly marked on the line of the 

 cell pattern (Bacot, May 14th, 1899). 



Case. — The case of the larva in its first stadium is 2-25mm. in 

 length, and about -75mm. in diameter, cylindrical, tapering somewhat 

 to anal end, made of fragments of leaf, sand, &c, worked into the silk, 

 whilst traces of the flake or scale-like method of attachment can be 

 already detected. The hybernating cases were noted in the middle of 

 January (1900), as being nearly alike in size and general appearance. 

 Two that were examined proved to be 22mm. and 20-5mm. in length, 

 and 6 # 25mm. and 4 , 7mm. in width, respectively, but slight variations 

 in size were largely due to the arrangement and size of the material 

 used as a covering. The cases are made of silk with grains of sand, 

 earth, fragments of vegetable debris (pieces of stem, leaves, bark, &c). 

 The larger and outermost pieces are (1) scale-like fragments (seed-cap- 

 sules, flat thin pieces of bark, or stick), (2) fine pieces of grass stem, 

 or dried roots. Altogether the case is very distinctive and differs 

 markedly from that of P. villosella of equal size. When the case is 

 open it is seen to be slightly constricted at the neck, the mouth when 

 open being somewhat expanded (bell-mouthed); the attached fragments 

 are decidedly fewer near the mouth than further back, the silk is loosely 



