122 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[June 



gradually rising and the stillness around is occasionally broken by the 

 melodious song of the skylark, as he wings his way upward till almost 

 lost to view; the freshness and luxuriance of the vegetation is a 

 reminder that larvae are now feeding everywhere, so we must make 

 the best use of the little time at our disposal to search for those species 

 we should like to obtain. We notice in our stroll over the chalk 

 downs that insects are now getting plentiful, and as we stoop to 

 examine the beautiful Bee orchis, now coming into flower, we notice 

 the leaves of the sun cistus f tielianthemum viilgave ) are drawn together 

 and bleached by the larva of G. to'-niolella and the shoots by the larva 

 of G. sequax, the larva also of Col. onosmella may still be taken on the 

 viper's bugloss (Echuim viilgave) and occasionally we find the leaves of 

 the black knapweed ( Centauvea nigra J drawn together by the larva of 

 Dep. liturella. We can now obtain the larva of C. horridella by beating 

 sloe and wild apple bushes, and from hawthorn C. scahvella ; the 

 beautiful velvety oblique marked larva of C. nemovella is now to be 

 taken on honeysuckle, and in the seeds of Stellavea holostea, the 

 yellowish larva of' Gel. maculea. The seed heads of chenopodium and 

 atriplex are now being drawn together by the pretty striped 

 larva of G. atriplicella, and the Genista anglica is now having its leaves 

 mined by the larva of G. alhipalpella and Col. genestcecolella; the leaves 

 of the chenopodium are also being mined at this time by the larva of G. 

 ncsviferella and G. hermannella. In the drawn together shoots of Inula 

 dysentevica, the larva of A. granitella w411 now be found nearly full 

 grown, and some of the leaves of Hypericiuii will be found neatly 

 folded over by the larva of Grac. anroguttella into a perfect cone. The 

 large black cases of Col. vibicella, on leaves of Genista tinctoria cannot 

 fail to be observed, and the dull green larva of Gel. lentiginosella will 

 be found the same time drawing the shoots together; on rose, the 

 larva of C. gvyphipennella will be found by the bleached appearance of 

 the leaves, and in the leaves of dogwood ( Covnus sanguined ) the larva 

 of A . pfeifferella is now busily at work, from which they will now soon 

 cut out their oval cases and drop to the ground. This is the time to 

 examine the leaves of poplars for the larva of Phyl. suffusella, which 

 are betrayed by the snail-like track on the surface of the leaves. It 

 would occupy far too much space to enumerate all the species to be 

 taken this month, but it is as well to examine any distorted shoot or 

 unhealthy looking plants we may come across in our rambles, for it is 

 in such as these we are most likely to find those larvae we are in 

 search of. — G. Elisha, Shepherdess Walk, City Road, London. 



A. CRAT^Gi. — Mr. Tutt in the "Record" for April last, says that 

 he should have thought that Mr. Hodgkinson would have known that 

 the record of the specimens vouched for by Mr. Webb, "Ento- 

 mologist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. XXIV., p. 131 (1887), was the 



