178 
[December, 
The tubercular blackish dots are very small, each emitting a fiue hair of great 
sensitiveness. Tlie spiracles very small and black. 
The larva is extremely difficult to inspect carefully, and evinces the greatest 
aversion to light, and makes rapid efforts to hide itself; at such times, if one of 
its hairs be touched with a finger, most violent contortions ensue, or else it springs 
backwards, and will run that way quite as rapidly as forwards,— and in its twistings 
and wrigglings it rivals the most nimble of Tortrices. 
The pupa is about five-eighths of an inch or little more in length, very slender, 
and of about uniform bulk throughout ; the head and back of thorax a little pro- 
miuent ; the abdomen but slightly curved backwards, long, and scarcely tapeiing 
at the end, which is obtusely rounded. 
The wing-cases very short in proportion. 
On the back of each abdominal ring are two transverse ridges of minute 
curved points or hooks, and a pair of them on the under-surface of each wing, the 
penultimate having a ridge of them in addition, and a cii'clet of them on the blunt 
and rounded tip. 
The colour of the pupa is rather dark brown, but the golden blotches begin to 
appear through the wing-covers, and increase in brightness as the hour draws near 
for the disclosure of the imago, the pupa previously making its way nearly out of 
the cocoon in readiness. The moths bred were all out from the 26th of June to 
6th of July.— Id. 
Notes on the larvcB of some fir-feeding Lepidoptera.— Guided by information re- 
ceived from my friend Mr. Machin, I went to work in the beginning of April last 
to search for larvae or pupae of Retinea tiirionana in shoots of Scotch fir. On the 
9th, at Woolmer Forest, I found the shoots of the young trees much infested with 
larvae which I supposed to be those of that species, and accordingly collected a lot 
of them. Afterwards, however, being informed that these were probably only 
young lai'vse of BtioUana, I desisted from collecting them (which I have since had 
cause to regret), and confined myself to searching for the pupae of turionana, which 
I soon learned how to obtain. 
Now I know very well that some years ago Mr. Machin carefully described the 
habits of this species in the " Intelligencer," but as it is necessary to my purpose 
to give an outUne of them here, I hope I shall be pardoned the repetition. 
The larva oHurionanci feeds during the winter inside the centre shoot at the 
tip of a branch of Scotch fir, generally selecting the topmost centre shoot of a 
young tree. This it hollows out, eating its way quite down into the pith below the 
ring of side shoots, which it leaves untouched, and makes a hole at the side of the 
woody part, among the needles, through which the excrement is ejected, and 
around which the resinous sap exuding from the wound forms a thick lump with 
the round hole through it. The pupa state is assumed in the centre shoot, but when 
the moth is ready to emerge the pupa works its way down the passage and out 
through the resinous tube, till it hangs free all but the last segment or two, which 
retain a hold in the passage, so that the moth, when it emerges, has no need to 
touch the resin, to which it might otherwise adhere. Before this, however, the 
circle of shoots has begun to grow, leaving in the centre the dead one, formings 
natural conical cocoon, and this seems to betray the whereabouts of the pupa. 
