VARIATION. 
' 57 
Structure of the cocoon of Eriogaster lanestris. — Has any 
one studied Eriogaster lanestris much? Two of mine spun a common 
cocoon and pupated therein to the detriment of one another. I sent 
them to Mr. Tutt. I had two notes from lepidopterists saying that it had 
happened to them with the same insect. Is it an ancestral custom, 
nearly lost? Is there any parallel among other insects? How 
do they make the lid to the top of the cocoon ? It is plainly visible 
long before the pupa emerges, and chips off with quite a clean edge. 
The cocoon itself is made in two distinct layers ; the outer hard one 
with the air holes .in, amd an inner and soft one of the texture of very 
fine brown paper, without any holes at all. The two separate pretty 
easily if a cocoon is pulled to pieces. I have never had time to watch 
the process of cocoon making, but I should like to have seen the two 
working together. The insect itself is a late emerger, generally about 
4 o’clock, nine of mine have emerged up to date in each case in 
batches of three, consisting of one male and two females, I was looking 
into my pot when the last lot came, and they all emerged as nearly 
simultaneously as I could see, so that the insect has behaved with 
strange, if accidental, eccentricity, in my case. — G. M. A. Hewett, The 
College, Winchester. 
Variation. 
Larentia multistrigaria vars. — I have been capturing Larentia 
inultistrigaria for the purpose of getting varieties, and have got some 
nice banded forms, and last night three very dark, one as black as 
soot, with a few light dots round the edge. — W. Reid, Pitcaple. 
March 2^th, 1891. 
Homososoma saxicola, Vaughan, as a var. of H. nimbella. — 
There can be no doubt that Ragonot, in pronouncing H. saxicola to 
be only a variety of nhnbella, expressed the opinion already formed 
about it by not a few British entomologists. As Mr. Tutt has quoted 
{Record^ vol. i., pp. 325-326) the last half of Mons. Ragonot’s note 
in E}it. Mo. Mag., xxii., p. 26, I should like to complete the quota- 
tion by recalling the first half which runs thus: — “This appears to 
be the most frequent form of nimbella in England I have a number 
of British nimbella from Yarmouth, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Pembroke 
and Dublin, and none are like Continental specimens of that species.” 
At any rate, Mons. Ragonot had plenty of nimbella before him, and, 
though he was incorrect in assigning the name saxicola to the great 
bulk of our British specimens instead of to only a certain proportion 
of them, there seems to me to be no doubt that in considering 
saxicola to be a var. of nimbella he formed a perfectly correct con- 
clusion about the matter. It is almost certain that, among his British 
specimens, Mons. Ragonot must have had some genuine saxicola, and 
was acquainted with the form, as he would not have treated of it 
without consulting the original description in Ent. Mo. Mag., vii., p. 
132 ; but it is clear that he regarded all our examples as belonging to 
one variable species. True though it is, as Mr. Tutt says, that all 
British nimbella are saxicola, yet it is apparently equally true that 
hardly any of them are typical nimbella ! , 
C 
