10 DTANTHiEOIA BAKRETTII. 



with heaps of minute pale cream-coloured frass adher- 

 ing to them ; and on the seventh day I examined the 

 axil of a stem and leaf, where I found a larva had 

 mined its way downwards and was lying a quarter of 

 an inch below in the stem, waiting apparently for its 

 first moult, but my stripping away half the stem to 

 expose it proved fatal, for it soon after died. 



About this time 1 began to realise the intentions of 

 the infant larvae, and conld but lament the jeopardy 

 my experiment had placed them in, on finding the 

 bits of plant were losing their freshness, and the 

 impossibility of rescuing the tiny creatures from their 

 perilous positions, for each attempt made proved fatal 

 in a short time to those in the stems ; soon, too, the 

 bit of root began to turn mouldy, and a fresh piece 

 was placed beside it, and on the eleventh day I had 

 the satisfaction to see a heap of frass thrown out of 

 it — a proof of one still alive and within the fresh piece. 



In the meantime I had satisfied myself that neither 

 flowers, leaves, nor root of Statice armeria had been 

 attacked, and therefore had potted two plants of 

 Silene maritim,a, having good roots and close together 

 in the pot, and there, between those roots just beneath 

 the surface of earth, I wedged in tightly the bit of 

 root containing the sole surviving larva, on July 23rd. 



On September 13th I turned out the contents of the 

 pot, by inverting it, to search for the larva, but no 

 search was needful, for the soil had been more sandy 

 at the bottom of the pot than elsewhere, and now 

 formed the top of a cone, and this slipping away, the 

 larva at once rolled into view ; it had evidently done 

 feeding, and a great quantity of pale frass, quite 

 fresh, filled up a large cavity in the shoulder of the 

 thickest root ; if it made any chamber or gallery the 

 falling away of the light earth had quite destroyed it. 



When the larva was placed in a small pot with 

 some of the earth it did not burrow underneath, but, 

 after much wandering about, eventually settled down 

 under a fragment of root, and there changed to a 



