178 



I December, 



The tubercniar blackish dots are very small, each emitting a fine hair of great 

 sensitiveness. The spiracles very small and black. 



The larva is extremely difficult to inspect carefully, and evinces the greatest 

 aversion to light, and makes rapid efiforts to hide itself; at such times, if one of 

 its hairs be touched with a finger, most violent contortions ensue, or else it springs 

 backwards, and will run that way quite as rapidly as forwards, — and in its twistings 

 and wrigglings it rivals the most nimble of Tortrices. 



The papa is about five-eighths of an inch or little more in length, very slender, 

 and of about uniform bulk throughout ; the head and back of thorax a little pro- 

 minent ; the abdomen but slightly curved backwards, long, and scarcely tapering 

 at the end, which is obtusely rounded. 



The wing-cases very short in proportion. 



On the back of each abdominal ring are two transverse ridges of minute 

 curved points or hooks, and a pair of them on the under-surface of each wing, the 

 penultimate having a ridge of them in addition, and a circlet of them on the blunt 

 and rounded tip. 



The colour of the pupa is rather dark brown, but the golden blotches begin to 

 appear through the wing-covers, and increase in brightness as the hour draws near 

 for the disclosure of the imago, the pupa previously making its way nearly out of 

 the cocoon in readiness. The moths bred were all out from the 26th of June to 

 6th of July.— Id. 



Notes on the larvce of some fir-feeding Lepidoptera. — Guided by information re- 

 ceived from my friend Mr. Machin, I went to work in the beginning of April last 

 to search for larvse or pupae of Retinea turionana in shoots of Scotch fir. On the 

 9th, at Woolmer Forest, I found the shoots of the young trees much infested with 

 larvae which I supposed to be those of that species, and accordingly collected a lot 

 of them. Afterwards, however, being informed that these were probably only 

 young larvao of Bxioliana, I desisted from collecting them (which I have since had 

 cause to regret), and confined myself to searchiug for the pupse of turionana, which 

 I soon learned how to obtain. 



Now I know very well that some years ago Mr. Machin carefully described the 

 habits of this species in the " Intelligencer," but as it is necessary to my purpose 

 to give an outline of them here, I hope I shall be pardoned the repetition. 



The larva of turionana feeds during the winter inside the centre shoot at the 

 tip of a branch of Scotch fir, generally selecting the topmost centre slioot of a 

 young tree. This it hollows out, eating its way quite down into the pith below the 

 ring of side shoots, which it leaves untouched, and makes a hole at the side of the 

 woody part, among the needles, through which the excrement is ejected, and 

 around which the resinous sap exuding from the wound forms a thick lump with 

 the round hole through it. The pupa state is assumed in the centre shoot, but when 

 the moth is ready to emerge the pupa works its way down the pa.ssage and out 

 through the resinous tube, till it hangs free all but the last segment or two, which 

 retain a hold in the passage, so that the moth, when it emerges, has no need to 

 touch the resin, to which it might otherwise adhere. Before this, however, the 

 circle of shoots has begun to grow, leaving in the centre the dead one, forming a 

 natural conical cocoon, and this seems to betray the whereabouts of the pupa. 



