1861] 



111 



The pupa short, stout, reddish-brown in colour, the anal segments 

 still enveloped in the cast larva skin (I notice this to be the case with 

 the other species also), enclosed in a thin web, in which bits of moss 

 and lichen were sometimes inwoven, and placed under any protecting 

 cover, such as a stone. 



The moths I bred were very fine, much larger than any I ever 

 captured, and although varying somewhat among themselves in the 

 depth of their grey tints, yet uoue of them were at all like stramineola. 



LitJiosia mesomella. On two or three previous occasions, I kept a 

 larva or two alive from summer till after Christmas, having fed them on 

 sallow leaves, green or decaying ; and last spring I managed to retain 

 one even until the new sallow leaves were out again, but it would not 

 resume feeding after hybernation, and so died ; it was then quite half- 

 an-inch in length ; in colour a velvety-black all over, and covered on 

 every segment, save the head and 2nd, with tufts of singular spatulate 

 dark grey hairs. I should much like to procure some sort of food on 

 which this species would feed up, for they would never take to any sort 

 of lichen I gave them. 



Lithosia plumheola (complamdd) , I will only remark that the 

 larva of this species assumes its lateral reddish-orange stripe at its first 

 or second moult, when but little over a line in length ; also that it 

 seems to feed and grow more slowly than the other species. 



Oalligenia miniata. Eggs obtained from a female captured July 

 18th, 18t)7 ; the larvae hatched before the end of the month ; fed slowly 

 but almost continuously till the end of May, by which time six out of 

 nineteen survived to spin up ; the moths out June 19th — 30th. 



The food chosen at first was a sallow leaf, which had become damp 

 and rotten by being kept in a glass stoppered bottle ; afterwards when 

 placed outdoors in a flower-pot they ate withered oak and sallow leaves 

 and various lichens ; in spring they nibbled the slices of turnip put in 

 with them as traps for slugs, and at last settled down steadily to eat 

 the red waxy tips of Lichen caninus, and fed up to quite full size on 

 thisTood. In a state of nature I understand they are found feeding 

 upon the lichens that grow on the boles of oak trees. 



The eggs of miniata are very diff*erent from the usual round pearly 

 beads of the Lithosice, being more fusiform in shape, rich yellow in 

 colour, and placed on end with great regularity at a little distance 

 from each other in rank and file ; my batch of eggs was deposited in 

 four rows, viz., three of five eggs each, and one of four. 



