14 EMMELESIA. BLANDIATA. 



been by means of British examples that I have worked 

 out its history, although the help came from an old 

 ally. 



On the 21st of August, 1880, a sultry day with hot 

 sun and occasional showers, the Rev. John Hellins 

 was strolling in advance of his vehicle through a part 

 of the Brunig Pass, between the Alpnach and Brienz 

 in Switzerland, and was watching the swarms of butter- 

 flies on the wing, when he noticed a small grey moth 

 busy over a plant of euphrasy (Euphrasia officinalis), 

 which was growing on a bank a little above his head ; 

 some misty recollection of the above-mentioned notice 

 in the Manual made him think of E. blandiata, and 

 he tried to catch the moth in order to see if it was 

 that species ; but failing in this he came back to the 

 plant about which it had been flying, and pulling 

 several shoots of it found that he had secured about a 

 dozen of the eggs that had just been deposited under- 

 neath the leaves amongst the open flowers, and these, 

 unfortunately supplemented by some fresh shoots 

 gathered early next morning, and so damp with dew, 

 he posted in a tin box to me on the 22nd, and I re- 

 ceived it in the afternoon of the 23rd. 



On opening the box I found most of the euphrasy 

 already decayed, for it is one of the plants that fade 

 rapidly from damp, and though I could see several 

 empty egg-shells, there were only four or five tiny 

 larvae still living, but there was also one bigger and 

 finer than the rest, just emerging from a round hole in 

 a seed-vessel, where it had evidently fed on the un- 

 ripe contents; a few eggs had remained unhatched, 

 and from these one larva appeared next day, and two 

 more the day following, when I also found another 

 larva of an earlier batch that had already moulted 

 once if not twice. 



The young larvae soon ate their way into the seed 

 capsules, and therein must have moulted, for though 

 their small entrance hole was detected in the upper 

 part of some capsules, they themselves could be seen but 



