Entomological Society. 



C543 



elapse before we get the larvae. My cases of S. inconspicuella have been kept out of 

 doors, and the last few days their inmates have been making their appearance. I have 

 also bred a few females fromt he cases found on beech trees at Dunham Park, but not 

 a single male ; this is my fifth year, and no males. The female from these cases is 

 quite distinct from S. inconspicuella £ ; though the cases are larger the females are 

 smaller, aud the anal tuft is not half the size that it is in S. inconspicuella. In May 

 I hope to send you a very distinct species that feeds on the trunks of fruit trees at 

 Bristol ; unfortunately these also are all females, and no males as yet. You seem to be 

 in doubt as to the food of these case-bearing insects ; it is the fine powdery lichen that is 

 met with on most trees, walls, old palings, &c. ; on it I have fed Talseporia pseudo- 

 bombycella, Soleuobia triquetrella, S. inconspicuella, Xysmatodoma argentimaculella, 

 X. melanella, &c. Passing the wall where X. argentimaculella occurs, I gathered a 

 few of the larva? in their queerly formed bags. — R. S. Edleston ; Bowdon, near Man- 

 chester, April 12, 1859. — ' Intelligencer.' 



Habits of Nepticula argyropezella. — Last October and November I met with some 

 yellow larva?, mining close to the foot-stalk in leaves of Populus tremula ; from these 

 I have now bred specimens of a bluish black Nepticula, with very large silvery cilia, a 

 minute white spot on the outer margin of the anterior wings, and a larger spot on 

 the inner margin, nearer to the tip of the wing ; this Mr. Stainton considers N. argyro- 

 pezella, though much blacker than captured specimens. The egg appears to be 

 deposited, not on the leaf, but on one side of the long stem, about a quarter of an 

 inch from its junction with the leaf; the young larva, penetrating the stem, burrows 

 to the leaf, which it enters at the midrib, and mines the upper cuticle, rarely passing 

 through a rib, but completely devouring, as it goes, all the substance between the middle 

 and one side rib, thus forming a wedge-shaped mine, with the excrement irregularly 

 scattered; the larva, when full fed, emerges on the upper side of the leaf, and forms 

 on the ground a flat, pale brown and rather woolly cocoon, from which the pupa is 

 protruded on the escape of the perfect insect. From the mode of mining, it is obvious 

 that, unlike most Nepticula?, only a single larva can be nourished by each leaf, and 

 they may be collected better in the falleu leaves than in those yet on the trees. — 

 P. II, Vaughan ; Redland, Bristol. — Id. 



Proceedings of Societies. 

 Entomological Society. 

 March 7, 1859— Dr. Gray, President, in the Chair. 



Donations. 



The following donations were announced, and thanks ordered to be presented to the 

 donors : — 1 The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London,' Vol. xxii. Pt. 3 ; pre- 

 sented by the Society. 'fKonigliga Svenska Fregatten Eugenias Kesa omkring Jorden 

 under Befal ' af C. A.Virgin, aren 1851 — 1853 ; by the Royal Academy of Sciences of 

 Stockholm. 'An Accentuated List of British Lepidoptera,' 3 copies ; by the Entomo- 

 logical Societies of Oxford and Cambridge. ' Journal of the Proceedings of the 

 Linnean Society,' Supplement to Botany, No. 1 ; by the Society. « Proceedings of the 



