CUPIDO MINIMUS. 119 



and considering its mode of walking, really rapid. The larvae continu- 

 ously crawl away out of observation when one has them on a table, 

 etc. (Tutt, July I2th, 1908. Larva? from Glion). On July 2nd-4th, 

 I found larva? of C. minimus, at Glion, in heads of Anthyllis vulneraria. 

 Those first found were fullgrown on flower-heads with seeds all but 

 ripe. Other places about, however, presented the seeds ready to fall, or 

 actually falling, and the depredations of the larva? were common, but the 

 latter, with rare exceptions, gone. It is of interest to note that the 

 hay (everything is cut for hay at Glion) is cut at a stage at which the 

 larva has just left the flower, or is just about to do so, and does 

 probably do so w 7 hilst the hay lies cut, and before it is carried. In 

 various meadows where the hay is cut, or about to be, but not yet cut, 

 the majority of heads are already abandoned. The cutting of hay 

 here, therefore, at any rate, is not fatal to this species as it is to so 

 many. There is some little variation in the habits and colouring of 

 the larva. Usually the larva is inside the distended calyx, and eating 

 the seed out of the little pod, not, unfrequently, apparently, having 

 entered it from the top, that is the natural opening from which the 

 corolla projects. As frequently, or perhaps more so, it has entered by 

 a hole at or near the base, and other flowers are found that had pre- 

 viously been entered by the same larva, and of which the seed, or if young 

 enough the pod also, had been eaten, but it often happened in these 

 cases also, that the larva and its works were not easily noticed, the 

 larva being detected by the way in which the calyx is more than 

 usually distended, sometimes by holding the head up against the light, 

 and sometimes by feeling the full calyx with the fingers. In some 

 cases, however, the larval damage was more evident, the larva passing- 

 direct from one bloom to the next, at first, perhaps, directly, but after- 

 wards by aid of a cavity at the bases of the flowers, which were more 

 or less fastened together by silk, making a sort of cocoon about the 

 size of the larva, which w T onld usually be in one of the calyces. In 

 those heads which the fullfed larva had left, the difference was very 

 marked, some having the flowers fastened together and plundered from 

 a common cavity ; in other cases, and more frequently, the hollowed pods 

 were in flowers each as separate as they are naturally. All the larva? were 

 identical in markings, but these were faint in some very pale specimens, 

 that one is almost tempted to call white, whilst other larva? are of a 

 red-brown, in which the markings are pronounced. On July 5th, I 

 made special observation as to how larva? attack the calyx contents, 

 and found several flower-heads with one calyx containing a fullgrown 

 larva, but with no trace of where the larva had gone in, either in that 

 flower or in others it had eaten out. In these cases it is clear that the 

 larva always entered by the top of the calyx, in others, all eaten flowers 

 had holes, and frequently the holes in the calyces were connected 

 together by some slight spinning (Chapman). The discovery of the 

 larva of Gelecltia umbrosella, led to my finding the larva of C. minimus, 

 which has a similar mode of life, for this also lives in the flower-heads 

 of Anthyllis vulneraria at the same time, also draws the flowers together, 

 bores through them, excavates the seeds on which it feeds, and deposits 

 its reddish excrement between the blossoms ; it differs, however, in 

 that it leaves the plant when fullfed, and rests in crevices or other 

 hiding-places, a few pupating and producing imagines in late July or 

 early August, whilst a far greater number hybernate as larva?, not 



