1881 .] 
177 
THE OCCURRENCE IN HEREFORDSHIRE OF PEMPELIA IIOSTILIS, 
WITH DESCRIPTION OF THE LARVA. 
BY JOHN H. WOOD, M.B., AND W. BUCKLER. 
I was fortunate enough, last June, to breed three specimens of 
this rare insect, a species that has not, I believe, been taken in this 
country for many years. 
The larvae were met with somewhat accidentally. I was hunting 
one day in the middle of September, 1879, among underwood, for 
larvae of the Closterce , when I caught sight of a few strands of silk 
spun from a brown curled aspen leaf to a living green one. On 
picking the dead leaf and uncurling it, I saw exposed on its surface a 
silken tube, at once suggestive of the work of a knothorn, and this 
supposition became almost a certainty, when the little grey larva, after 
some persuasion, was prevailed on to show itself. For the rest of the 
afternoon I had, as may be supposed, eyes for nothing but dead or 
dying aspen leaves, and the result was two more nests. I call them 
nests, because I subsequently found that with one exception, in which 
instance only a single larva was present, the leaves were occupied by 
two or even three larvse living together, each in its own gallery, but 
with the galleries closely joining or even interlacing. The larvse at 
this time were very young, and considering the choice they had made 
(in the one case of a dead leaf, in the other two of the old tenements 
of other larvse), might readily have been overlooked ; but it was quite 
a different matter when I found, later in the month, a fourth nest con- 
taining two nearly full grown larvse. As in the others, so there was 
here, the nucleus of two half dead yellow leaves, but from these were 
stretching in all directions bands of silk to the adjacent fresh ones, 
which had been freely eaten, drawing them together and thus making 
a large and conspicuous object. I sent Mr. Buckler two of the larvse, 
and am greatly indebted to his kindness for the description of them 
given below ; unfortunately, both proved to be stung. Mine, when 
full fed, left their nests. They spun up (four of them) in rolls 
of paper, and changed to pupse at once. Being anxious to see the 
moth, I forced one early in the spring, and was punished with a very 
bad cripple ; the others left to themselves produced fine specimens 
in June. 
The question arises — which selects the site of the nest ? Does 
the parent moth lay her eggs on these old leaves, or do the larvaB 
wander about till they find them ? In favour of the former is the 
fact, that more than one larva is generally present ; nevertheless, I 
am inclined to think that the latter is the correct view, since the exer- 
