6o 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



LMarch, 



abundantly distinct aud sufficiently well known. Of Hieracii and 

 Lcetus, no authentic records of captures in England exist, ours being 

 all Teucrii and Distans respectively, and the question of the identity 

 or non-identity of Lcetus and Distans does not affect us. Can any of 

 your readers refer me to any published records of Distans from Folke- 

 stone, or of Brachydactylus from Perthshire, Deal, or Folkestone. Pilo- 

 sellce presents some difficulties, from the fact that most of the specimens 

 so called, are either small Teucrii or large Parvidactylus, different as 

 these are from the true Pilosellce of our lists, which so far as is recorded, 

 is entirely confined to Mickleham, and has not, I think, been recently 

 taken. I hope this year to attack it in its old haunts (if I can but 

 learn in what part of Mickleham it occurs), and see in what respect, 

 if any, and to what extent it differs from Distans, except in its darker 

 colour. 



With regard to Teucrii (or rather Britaniodactylus), it should be re- 

 membered that Heterodactylus, the name now advanced by Mr. South, 

 was not Haworth's but De Viller's name, and a solitary specimen of 

 Haworth's, so labelled, cannot be deemed sufficient evidence that our 

 Teucrii is De Viller's Heterodactylus, so Heterodactylus must retire again 

 into that obscurity from which it is a pity that a so long disused and for- 

 gotten name was ever dug out to make confusion worse confounded. 



As regards the second group, containing Bipunctidactylus (or Sero- 

 tinus as we are bidden to call it), Aridus, Plagiodactylus, Scabiodactylus, 

 Loewii, and Hodgkinsoni, each in turn has been announced as distinct, 

 with such a flourish of trumpets, and air of absolute certainty, that it 

 seems hard to be now told to believe that we have but two real species 

 in the whole lot. Bipunctidactylus and Plagiodactylus have been clearly 

 proved to be different in their larvae, and in their food, as well as in 

 appearance, and have equally conclusively been proved to be identical, 

 which no doubt will make the matter clear for the future. 



As regards the third group, we learnt from Entomologist, XV. p. 34, 

 that Tceniadactylus was distinct from Zetterstedtii, from which it could 

 be at once told by its narrow wings, the structural character of which 

 seemed to indicate its belonging to a different sub-genus. Now, 

 structural character and all, goes by the board, but departing, 

 leaves behind it a hateful legacy, in the shape, as far as it can be 

 traced, of a hint that our Zetterstedtii (or Zetterstedti as it seems now to 

 be called), is not Zeller's Zetterstedtii at all, but that our Zetterstedtii is 

 Nemoralis, and Zeller's Zetterstedtii is our old Gonodactylus after all, which 

 we are told is the same species as Farfarellus, which has apparently but 

 just escaped from being called identical with the moribund Taenia- 



