THE YOUNG NATURA.LIST. 



185 



A brief record of the same captures 

 appears in the " Entomologist's Annual," 

 for 1870, and there the matter rests. No 

 one has taken it since, and consequently 

 grave doubts are entertained as to whether 

 it was ever taken at all. The range of the 

 species, according to Dr. Staudinger, is 

 central and southern Europe, except Eng- 

 land, Andalusia, Italy, Turkey, Dalmatia, 

 and Greece ; occurring also in Sweden, 

 Livonia, Finland, Bythnia, Syria, and the 

 Altaj mountains in Siberia. This country 

 is, therefore, the only portion of its northern 

 range where it has not been found, while 

 it has extended its limits still further to the 

 north east. It is, therefore, a very likely 

 species to turn up here some day. 



C^siA. — This species is very easily dis- 

 tinguished from all others of the genus, 

 being rather bluish grey in colour. It is 

 larger than Compta, the central fascia is 

 similar in shape, but much obscured with 

 blaish grey, and in British examples exceed- 

 ingly so. The difference indeed between 

 British and continental specimens is so well 

 marked that Mr. Gregson, one of the first 

 captors of the insect here, proposed to call 

 our form of it by the name of Mana?ii, after 

 Manan, the first king of Man, Had this 

 suggestion been adopted, the differences 

 between the two would have been more 

 prominently brought forward, and no one 

 would have been likely to purchase the 

 foreign form as a British example, as sadly 

 too many have done. It was first taken in 

 1866, in the Isle of Man; the following year 

 Mr. Birchall bred it from larvae found feed- 

 ing on Silens mafitima, on the south coast of 

 Ireland. Since that time it has been taken 

 with some regularity, and may now be 

 found in all the best collections, and in 

 many that at present are only second best. 



Barretti.— I am not fortunate enough 

 to possess an example of this much prized 

 insect, and do not attempt to compile a 

 description. For this I refer my readers to 



Newman's " British Moths," page 390, or 

 the "Entomologist's Annual," 1864, page 

 124. It was first taken in 1S63, near Dublin, 

 by rslr. Barrett, in whose honour it is 

 named. Mr. Barrett's specimen was a 

 male, but Mr. Birchall took a female shortly 

 afterwards. Dr. Knaggs in describing it 

 said " It cannot possibly be confounded 

 with any other British species." It was 

 subsequently taken by various collectors. In 

 1868 Mr. Gregson thought it ought to occur 

 in the Isle of Man, went there, and took it in 

 the very locality he had considered likely 

 to produce it. The next year he met with 

 it again, and it has been several times taken 

 since, in the Isle of Man and in Ireland. No 

 one seems to have reared the insect from 

 larva until 1879, when Mr. Buckler succeeded 

 in doing so. The eggs from which his 

 examples v^ere reared were supplied by Mr. 

 Meek, and had been laid by a captured 

 female. Four of these eggs had been laid 

 "on part of a flower calyx of Silene maonUma, 

 to which they adhered, and five loose." 

 When they hatched, instead of following the 

 usual habit of Dianthcecia larvae, and making 

 their way into the calyx, only one of them 

 did so, three of the others making their way 

 into the stems, and the remainder wander- 

 ing about. It occurred to Mr. Buckler at 

 this stage to give them a small root of the 

 plant, and into this they soon ate their way. 

 It was now evident that their habits were 

 not those of Dianthcecia, and the chances of 

 rearing any seemed very small, as they died 

 when exposed, and the bits of plants they 

 had mined were loosing their freshness. 

 At this stage Mr. Buckler potted two plants 

 with the roots close together, and the bit of 

 root which now contained but one living 

 larva wedged tightly between them. This 

 was successful : th.e solitary larva fed up, 

 pupated on the 17th September, and emerged 

 (a male) on the evening of June 27th, 1879. 

 The larva that had gone into the seed cap- 

 sule was supposed to have died there ; but 



