98 
REPORT ON THE LICHENS OF EPPING FOREST. 
ance as to be extremely difficult of detection i tins moth is 
found in the New Forest, but I have not heard of its having been 
met with in Epping Forest. 
Another, and even more curious instance of protective re¬ 
semblance to lichens, has come under our notice in the case of a 
member of the micro-lepidoptera. Tutt (Natural History of the 
British Lepidoptera, ,1900) states that all the families of the 
I sychides, man\ of which feed on wall and tree-dwelling lichens, 
such as Physcia pulverulenta, Physcia parietina, Lecawora 
candelaria, and Buellia canescens, have larvae which form cases ; 
which cases the\ cany about with them and cover externally 
with extraneous substances, among which fragments of lichens 
are prominently included. Into these cases the larvae retreat 
when disturbed, and in them they pupate. The close re¬ 
semblance m coloui of these larval cases to the lichen-patches 
upon which the creature feeds renders them difficult of 
detection, and the resemblance is still further increased by the 
habit that at least one species of these moths (Bacotia sepium) 
has of fixing its thickly lichen-covered larval case in an up- 
light position, that is, perpendicularly to the surface upon 
which it is lesting, so as to exactly simulate, in position, size 
and coloui, the podetium of a lichen of the genus Cladonia. 
It is specially noted of this larva, also, that it lives on the lichen- 
covered trunks of trees and on fences, and appears (unlike most 
of its congeneis) nevei to live on the ground, nor to change 
from one tree to another. This creature has been recorded from 
Epping Foiest. W e exhibit some of the larval cases of an 
allied species of moth (Luffia ferchaultella) ,which were found 
on old palings in Chigwell Lane, Loughton, and which we owe 
to the kindness of Mr. A. W. Bacot, F.E.S., in which the re¬ 
semblance to the podetia of Cladoniae is sufficiently evident. 
Ihere is also, so Miss G. Lister informs us, a minute creature, 
Hymenobolus parasiticus , Zukal, at present grouped doubtfully 
with the Mycetozoa, which feeds regularly upon living lichens, 
but no true Myxomycete does so. 
A number of Micro-fungi attack living lichens, and some 
obscure lichens are themselves constant parasites upon the 
tlialli ol laigei species. A e have observed living specimens 
of Peltigera spuria attacked by a flesh-coloured fungus, Illos- 
ponum carneum, which forms numerous small, circular, floccu- 
