56 
TFIE SUBSTITUTE. 
get some posting-boxes made for 
sale upon my plan, which he 
highly approves, as ensuring the 
perfect security of the insects 
sent; therefore any one requiring 
them will please forward in post- 
age-stamps the amount for such as 
they need. The following are the 
sizes (inside measurement) and 
prices, including postage, to the 
purchasers. Length in., breadth 
Ig in., depth in., and only 2d. 
postage. Is. ; length in., breadth 
2^ in., depth IJ in., postage 4rf., 
Is. Of/.; both sizes will contain 
insects at the top and bottom. — E. 
S. Norcombe, 5, Saltitari/ Mount, 
I I earn tree, Exeter; November 4, 
1856. 
A New Nepticula Larva . — T 
fear I have been unjust ; or Lan- 
cashire has turned over a new leaf 
(in this case a leaf of Vaccinium 
Myrtillm). Mr. Edleston has 
discovered a larva {not that of 
Weaveri) mining a tortuous gal- 
lery in leaves of Vaccinium Myr- 
tilhui. I had received a few 
weeks previously the same larva 
from Herr Schmid, of Frankfort, 
hut the ‘ Intelligencer’ being then 
defunct, and the season so near its 
close, I thought it was hardly of 
any use announcing the fact, as 
few would he disposed to turn out 
on the moors to seek for a species 
unknown as British. But I mis- 
calculated the amount of energy 
latent in a Lancashire entomolo- 
gist. Mr. Edleston, it is true, 
had recently visited Mr. Wilkin- 
son, of Scarborough, whose name, 
this year, heads the list of Micro- 
Lepidopterological discoverers, 
and the impulse given on the 
Yorkshire coast was beneficially 
expended in ransacking the moors 
and dells of Lancashire. I\Ir. 
Edleston writes, “The Nepticulce 
are widely distributed, and only 
want looking for.” — H. T. Staix- 
TON ; November 6, 1856. 
EXTRACTS. 
Notes on Noctu.e; feom 
Guenee’s Noctuelites. 
[Continued from p. 48.] 
Xylophasia. 
Thanks to the elongate form of 
these insects, and their longitudi- 
nal markings, they have long been 
confounded with the Xylinidw, 
and Mr. Stephens himself, though 
he rightly constituted for them a 
distinct genus, left them in the 
vicinity of the latter fiimily. I 
have said in my essay how fa- 
from natural this arrangement apr 
peared to he, and in my Index I 
assigned tlieiu the place which 
experience makes me retain for 
them now. 
The larvae of Xylophasia are of 
dull colours, shining, slightly ver- 
miform, with the spots warty and 
shining; they always live con- 
cealed, and within reach of the 
roots or lowermost leaves of the 
plants on which they feed. These 
plants are especially Gramineee or 
Cyperace.ee. We generally find 
them in s|iring, sometimes even 
in the middle of winter, and the 
perfect insects appear from .Tune 
to August. 
The genus Xylophasia is nume- 
rous in species, both European 
and Exotic : the former have for 
the most ]>art been ill-studied by 
authors, and especially hy French 
authors. These have ju'ctendcd 
that Lithoxylea has been obtained 
