5010 Entomological Botany. 



Potentilla anserina. Silver-weed. 



This plant is too common to be passed over in silence, but, though 

 I have often looked on it I never yet found a Lepidopterous larva 

 either at breakfast or dinner. 



Potentilla reptans. Common Creeping Cinquefoil. 

 Potentilla tormentilla. Common Tormentil. 



Both common plants; the latter apparently ubiquitous, growing 

 freely on sand-hills by the sea-side and on the summits of Scotch 

 mountains. No Lepidopterous larva has been observed on either. 



Potentilla Fragariastrnm. Barren Strawberry. 



The small white flowers peeping out from amongst the silky leaves 

 are among the harbingers of spring ; it delights to grow on shady banks 

 and by the side of path -ways in woods. In the month of September 

 the leaves will be found mined in contorted, slender tracks, by the larva 

 of an unknown Nepticula, which Professor Frey hopes to breed in the 

 spring (see 'Entomologist's Annual,' 1856, p. 62, Enigma No. 5). I 

 have no doubt that the larva of Lampronia praelatella eats the leaves 

 of this plant with as much satisfaction as those of Fragaria vesca. 



Comarum palustre. Marsh Cinquefoil. 



Speyer quotes as feeding on this, Tortrix spectrana, but I am not 

 aware of any plant growing in moist places that that larva will not eat. 



As this plant is most at home in peaty bogs, where queer insects 

 may be expected to turn up, it should be scrutinized closely by those 

 who may happen to meet with it. 



Fragaria vesca. Wood Strawberry. 



Speyer enumerates the following as feeding on this plant : — Poly- 

 ommatus Alexis, Thymele Alveolus, Saturnia Carpini, Callimorpha 

 dominula, Tceniocampa I-cinctum y Phlogophora scita, Hyppa recti- 

 linea and Lampronia praelatella : the two species whose names are 

 here given in Italics have not yet been found in this country ; P. scita, 

 it must be borne in mind, has some resemblance to Meticulosa, and is 

 a species far more likely to be found here than Empyrea; I-cinctum, 

 allied to our common Gothica, is a more southern species, though it 

 has been found in the neighbourhood of Paris. 



