THE ENTOMOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 7.] SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1856. 
THE PRIZE ESSAY. 
As uoticed in our columns (No. 2, p. 13, 
and No. 3, p. 23), the subject selected 
for the Prize Essay of the Entomological 
Society is the elucidation of the habits 
and history of Gelechia terrella. The 
amount of the Prize, £o, is sufficient to 
show that the labour expended on the 
subject will not be all thrown away, and 
is, at the same time, not high enough to 
lead any one to take up the elucidation 
of Prize Essays as a means of a liveli- 
hood, an object, by-the-by, for which 
they were not intended. 
We believe that the larva of Gelechia 
terrella is not altogether pleased at having 
a price set upon its head ; indeed, if it 
resembles many of its congeners, we 
should not be at all surprised to hear 
that when discovered in its retreat it 
appeared greatly agitated, and shook its 
head about in a most distressingly tre- 
mulous manner. Every entomologist 
probably has a notion where the larva of 
Gelechia terrella ought to live, only 
somehow or other nobody can find it. No 
doubt it feeds on grass, says one : Fischer 
has proved it, says another; but still, in 
spite of assertion and proof (for Fischer’s 
larva we now know to be that of Gelechia 
[Price Id. 
rufesetns), no one finds it on grass. How 
silly you are ! exclaims a third, don’t you 
know it feeds in moss? But still he 
can’t show us the larva. The moth we 
know swarms pretty well everywhere, at 
any rate wherever there is grass ; it is by 
hundreds in every meadow, and by scores 
on the chalk downs, and so common is it 
that it is often found at sugar, though it 
is not every Gelechia that is attracted by 
that bait. May not the larva feed on 
some seed like Gelechia Malvella ? The 
perfect insects have a family resem- 
blance; may not the larvae have kindred 
tastes? We just throw this out to show 
how easy it is to start a new idea, very 
far from the previously half-accepted 
notions, and if a seed-feeder it must feed 
in autumn, whereas, if a grass or moss- 
feeder, it probably feeds in spring. The 
early specimens are probably already in 
pupae ; but as we know the insect keeps 
coming out for some time, there are, in 
all probability, many a score of fine full- 
fed larvaj, if we could only find out where 
to look for them. Whether the insects 
exercise a prejudicial influence on grass- 
lands is a matter which can only be as- 
certained after the economy of the insect 
is discovered : a species that is so abun- 
dant can hardly be altogether innocuous, 
or even if it should prove to be so it 
would at any rate be satisfactory to ascer- 
tain the fact. 
H 
