Observations on various Insects affecting the Com- Crops. 79 
larva is green, with three brown lines, and a reddish head, which 
is very similar to one I shall immediately describe. I wish, how- 
ever, to state that I have examined the cabinet of the Linnaeati 
Society, and find that a specimen of the P. Secalis, with Linnaeus's 
autograph label attached, is identical with the species figured by 
Duponchel as the P. frumentalis above described, but of which 
I could find no specimen in Linnaeus's cabinet. Treitschke and 
Duponchel affirm that Hiibner's figure of P. repandalis is the 
female of S. frumentalis. 
These moths are not at present recognised as natives of this 
country, but I think it probable that ere long they will make 
their appearance ; — for the beginning of last March I received 
from Alton in Hampshire some wheat-plants ; the blades looked 
sickly, and in the heart were larvae of the Oscinis vastator* and 
of a caterpillar of some moth answering to Turton s description ; 
but until I rear the moths 1 cannot determine upon the species. 
My correspondent T. C. stated that a large portion of the field 
was patchy, and affected by these larvae, yet in putting them into 
a garden-pot with a wheat-plant they did not appear to feed. On 
the 8th of April, however, Mr. F. J. Graham of Cranford 
showed me some plants of wheat attacked by rust, and in one of 
the centre shoots was a caterpillar of the same species as the one 
from Alton. It lay with its head downward, and was about 8 
lines or nearly two -thirds of an inch long, about the thickness of 
a small crow-quill, of a pale green colour, with a rusty brown 
head, and 2 narrow stripes of the same tint down the back ; it 
was furnished with 6 pectoral, 8 abdominal, and 2 anal feet. I 
shall anxiously await the appearance of the moth, and I regret 
that the limits of this report will not allow me to give figures of 
the above insects. 
It appears that these caterpillars are attended by a parasite, 
the Ichneumon Secalis, which lays its eggs in them. " It is the 
size of a louse," says Linnaeus, with a red head and beautifully 
green eyes ; the thorax is entirely black, as well as the horns, 
which are filiform, but scarcely so long as the body ; wings with 
a subrotund black marginal dot; abdomen ovate, black, smooth ; 
petiole rough; aculeus as long as the body."-)- Fabricius de- 
scribes this little fly as a Diplolepis,J but to which genus of the 
Chalcidites it belongs I cannot determine. 
Leucania obsoleta — The antiquated Leucania. 
Hiibner § figures this moth, which is one of the Noctuida, under 
* Journal of Royal Agric. Soc, vol. v. p. 493, and pi. L. figs. 31 to 34. 
t Linnaeus's Faun. Suec, No. 1641. 
X Fabricius's Syst. Piez., p. 152, No. 19. 
§ Europ. Schmet. Noctuae II., (Jenuinae S, pi. 48, f. 233. 
