16 MEETINGS. 



this species from the pen of the late William Buckler, where the 

 butter feeding- theory is disposed of. 



M. Rolander, who has followed the history of these larva in 

 the place I have cited in the Memoires de U Academie des Sciences de 

 Suede, said that they fed on many sort of eatables, as lard, butter, 

 and dried meat, and for that reason they willingly dwelt in the 

 larder and in the offices. He has seen them eat butter and lard with 

 avidity. He has rubbed all the body with lard and with butter 

 without their having appeared to suffer injury ; one knows that the 

 ordinary larvae are suffocated as soon as one stops their spiracles 

 with oil or some other greasy matter. But M. Rolander has remarked 

 that the larva? are able to hide their spiracles in folds of the skin to 

 avoid their being matted and stopped by the greasy matter surround- 

 ing them. 



He does not say that he has seen them reside in coverings in 

 form of fixed tubes ; he appears not to have known that M. De 

 Reaumer had spoken of them inhabiting a fixed sheath, for he said 

 they had not been described by any author. 



Now, after my recent experience, the foregoing extracts afford 

 me most convincing evidence that Rolander was not really acquainted 

 with the larva until it had ceased feeding. I can only suppose that 

 he must have somehow deceived himself in imagining that which he 

 asserted of its food and of its spiracles, ingeniously suiting the one to 

 the other, but it seems something more strange that for more than 

 a hundred years all authors who have written on the Pyralides have 

 gone on copying the above, and commenting on it as one of the stock 

 facts in this branch of natural history. 



Mr. Buckler's larva? were found in farm stables forming tubes 

 on the surface, but not entering the ground. He says " the tubes 

 were covered externally with small fragments of straw and wheat 

 husks on which the larva? must have fed." 



In my case the larva? no doubt fed on the leaves and dried 

 stems and berries of the vine which strewed the floor of the green- 

 house, and had not been disturbed. 



It is interesting to note that the habit of boring into the 

 ground has not been recorded before. From a spadeful of earth 

 about a foot square, which I placed in a box and covered with 

 gauze, more than twenty imagoes made their appearance. 



I paid another visit to the greenhouse last month, and although 

 the ground had been all thoroughly dug up and beaten down hard 

 during last winter, the larva? are again boring in all directions. 



NONAGRIA GEMINIPUNCTA IN GUERNSEY. 



After reading an article by Mr. Hodges in The Entomologist' s 

 Record "On the Habits of the larva? of N. Geminipuncta" and 

 having once taken a specimen of the perfect insect in Guernsey, 

 I started off on August 3rd to search for pupa?. 



The food plant is the common reed (Arundo Phragmites ) inside 

 the stems of which the larva? feed. I found a suitable locality 



