4844 Entomological Botany. 



Lathyrus pratensis. Meadow Vetchling. 



Speyer gives as feeding on this plant, which is very common with 

 us in meadows and hedges, two species not known as British, Orgyia 

 selenitica and Fidonia glarearia. The Tortrix larva, already men- 

 tioned under Vicia Sepium, feeds on this plant in September and Oc- 

 tober ; and a Coleophora larva has been observed on this plant 

 (according to Tischer), but there is some doubt to which species it 

 should be referred. 



Orobus niger. Black Bitter Vetch. 



A very scarce British plant, yet cited by Speyer, on Tischer's autho- 

 rity, as the especial food of Ephippiphora Loderana. It may, how- 

 ever, feed on other and commoner species of the same genus. 



Ornithopus perpusillus. Bird's-foot. 



Common on dry sandy and gravelly heaths, but easily overlooked 

 from its prostrate habit. Speyer mentions as feeding on it Anthrocera 

 fausta and Eyprepia Hebe, but the larva of the latter appears quite 

 polyphagous. It is hardly necessary to add that neither of these spe- 

 cies is known as British. 



Hippocrepis comosa. Horse-shoe Vetch. 



Common in chalky places, but probably confounded by the unini- 

 tiated with Lotus corniculatus, which it much resembles ; the leaves, 

 however, are pinnate instead of trefoil-form, and thus it may be imme- 

 diately distinguished. Hiibner represents the larva of Polyommatus 

 Corydon as feeding on this plant, and it is on it that I am disposed to 

 think that the larva of Coleophora niveicostella will be found to feed. 



Persica vulgaris. Peach. 



Speyer mentions as feeding on this, Papilio Podalirius, Anthophila 

 communimacula (a species not alluded to in Guenee's Noctuelites), 

 Tortrix cerasana and Cerostoma persicella. Tortrix cerasana, as we 

 know very well, is tolerably polyphagous ; but no other food-plant has 

 yet been assigned to Cerostoma persicella, which may some day put 

 in its claim to be naturalized amongst us, as many another insect of 

 extraneous origin has already done. The larva of Anarsia lineatella, 

 figured in Fischer-von-Roslerstamm, plate 94, feeds on the young 

 shoots of the peach in early spring, boring down the stem of the shoot 

 and causing the terminal leaves to droop. It is very injurious to the 



