30 AGLOSSA PINGUINAMS. 



month a number of them were discovered, enabling 

 me thoroughly to learn their natural mode of life. 

 The place in the stable where they were found was a 

 dark corner between the oat-bin and north wall, in a 

 very narrow interval of space between the two, into 

 which some of the hulls and chaff would often be 

 falling amongst the particles of straw accumulated 

 there whenever the bin was opened for feeding the 

 horses ; the larvae were almost all on the floor, in a 

 cool and slightly damp temperature, inhabiting tubular 

 residences of various lengths, quite flexible and adapt- 

 able to any surface ; and as all these tubes were more 

 or less covered with small fragments of straw and 

 wheat husks, they, while being removed, appeared 

 like strings of rubbish, accidentally held together 

 without any visible means of cohesion until the frag- 

 ments were plucked away, when the dirty-coloured 

 silk would betray the residence of a larva which never 

 showed itself in any instance until turned out. Some 

 of these larvae I sent to the Rev. John Hellins, who 

 examined them for me under his microscope, and 

 confirmed my view of their structure. 



Towards the end of June Mr. Hellins made further 

 acquaintance with fchis species ; he had gone with his 

 nephew to fish in the Exeter Canal, but, to use John 

 Leech's explanation of one of his pictures of Mr. 

 Briggs, " the wind that day was not in a favourable 

 quarter," and so to avoid a drenching from the S.E. 

 rain beating in from the sea they had to take shelter 

 in a stable, where presently they observed a specimen 

 of the moth sitting on the brick wall, and before long 

 ever so many more, and, while trying to count them, 

 they noticed several of the cocoons spun in the mortar 

 grooves between the bricks, at a height above the 

 ground of from three to five feet, some perhaps more, 

 clear away from the ledges of the rack and manger, 

 where the larvae must have fed on the matted and 

 dusty hay seed husks ; they noticed no straw in the 

 stable, but only a coarse kind of hay, made from 



