THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 57.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 81, 1S57. 
SMALL MOTHS. 
This day witnesses the publication of 
the second volume of the ‘ Natural 
History of the Tineina.’ As all our 
readers know, the Tineina are the small 
moths. Two years have elapsed since 
the publication of the first volume, in 
the preface to which we read, “It is 
hoped that the progress of our dis- 
coveries will enable us annually to pro- 
duce a volume ; it may perhaps be more 
than a year before the appearance of the 
second volume, for, owing to the death of 
Mr. Wing, who was to have drawn and 
lithographed all the specimens on the 
plates, we have the disadvantage of 
having again to train an artist to the 
required pitch of entomological excel- 
lence.” 
This sufficiently accounts for the de- 
lay which has taken place, hut as now 
more than one artist is employed in 
the “ portrait-painting ” of larvae, there 
seems no reason to anticipate any diffi- 
culty in the production of a volume 
annually. 
Indeed the bulk of the manuscript 
for the next volume is already written, 
and the plates to it will speedily be 
put in hand. 
Those who have not turned their 
[Price Id. 
attention to the subject have little con- 
ception of the variety in form and habit 
of the larvae of many of the small 
moths; some are flat and almost leg- 
less, others are flat and bond fide apo- 
dal; some are provided with eighteen 
legs, — or rather substitutes for them, — 
for, except in their position where the 
legs ought to he, they little resemble 
either the legs or prolegs of other cater- 
pillars. Of course a large number of 
these larvae are leaf-miners, but here 
again what an endless variety do we 
meet with ; hundreds of mines so totally 
different that a single glance is sufficient 
to show that they belong to different 
species, narrow or broad, straight or 
sinuous, flat or puckered, white or brown 
— one seems fairly to have entered an 
enchanted country, and it is difficult to 
realize that these queer things, which 
now we first learn to know , have always 
been around us. 
Difficulties there are, and always must 
be, in prosecuting the study of animals 
so small as the Tineina, but what Anglo- 
Saxon is disheartened by difficulties 
from attempting any enterprise ; of late 
the number of observers— aye, and of 
students — of this group has been for 
some time steadily on the increase, and 
that fact has served both as great assist- 
ance and a greater encouragement to 
JF 
