PROORIS GLOBULARI^}. 6 



On the 9th of October they were out of their mines, 

 had ceased to feed, and seemed to be hibernating; and 

 this I made sure of on the 21st, when I closely examined 

 them and saw that each larva had its feet on a silken 

 mat, and that one of them had a stay of a few threads 

 passed over its back attached to the stout midrib and 

 to the underside of the piece of leaf it was on ; each 

 of these pieces, already becoming discoloured, with 

 their occupants attached, I then placed at the base of 

 the plant of Gentaurea from which nearly all their food 

 had been gathered, and which I had recently dug up 

 and potted for their reception during the winter; one 

 being laid on a dry leaf, the other on a radical sprout- 

 ing leaf. I looked for them early in November, and 

 saw the pieces of leaf were nearly rotten and deserted 

 by the larvae, they having entirely gone from view. 



On the 17th of February, 1883, while noticing the 

 few large leaves on the plant which I kept in a window, 

 I chanced to observe two small watch-pocket-like 

 apertures cut in the upper epidermis of one of them, 

 and two minute black atoms of "frass" lying near, 

 and in the course of a week these hopeful appearances 

 were seen on more of the leaves, and began to increase 

 in number, but all of them were very small, and it was 

 not before the morning of the 25th that I was gratified 

 with the welcome sight of one of the larvae, the only 

 one it seemed that had survived the winter thus far ; 

 it was on the upper surface of a leaf, creeping deliber- 

 ately along the midrib towards the foot-stalk ; in the 

 afternoon I could see it attached to the underside of a 

 neighbouring leaf. 



The next morning after vainly looking all over the 

 plant, I found it had crawled off and was lodged on 

 the rim of the flower-pot, a circumstance that led me 

 to reflect on the roving disposition it had so soon 

 betrayed, there being evidence that it had wandered 

 all over the plant; so now, for fear of losing it, I again 

 placed it in the captivity of a box, where for a day or 

 two it mined into a gathered leaf and ate out the 



