Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/223

 for the recognition of the insect and the determination of its species; he considers Coquebert's figure of it as too coarsely drawn to throw any light upon the descriptions. This is also the case with the descriptions of Bosc, and the figures by which his memoirs are accompanied. The German authors, Frölich, Treitschke, and others, who in latter times have particularly devoted themselves to the study of the smaller species of Phalænae, or Moths, are of the same opinion as Duponchel, for not one of them mentions the Pyralis Vitana of Fabricius. This species is not mentioned in their voluminous works specially devoted to these insects; or if it be mentioned, it is without their being themselves aware of it. If in the numerous species which they have described they had discovered the Pyralis Vitana they would not have failed to cite Fabricius, whose works are in the hands of every entomologist. In this difficulty Duponchel has had recourse to Bosc's collection, which now forms part of the collection at the Museum; and he has found there, under the name of Vitana, a Pyralis which is figured and described by the German authors under the name of Pillerana. Now, according to them, the caterpillar of this Pyralis lives upon the Stachys Germaniæ, a plant too entirely distinct from the vine to allow of it being easily admitted that it lives indifferently upon the two vegetables. But besides, Fabricius has also described the Pyralis Pillerana, and the description which he gives of it differs essentially from the Pyralis Vitana; the latter is marked with three bands, the Pillerana has only two; the colour of the ground in the Vitana is of a brownish green, that of the Pillerana is of a golden green. From these circumstances M. Duponchel thinks that Bosc has committed the error of labelling one species for another; or, which is more probable, that the label of the Pyralis Vitana has been displaced in his collection, which is in great disorder. Duponchel has compared the description given by Bosc of the caterpillar of the Pyralis Vitana with those of all the caterpillars of the Pyralides or Tortrices mentioned in the authors who have treated of this family, and has not found one which appeared to apply to it. I however maintain, and remarked to him, that even if we could suppose that Bosc had been deceived with regard to the butterfly proceeding from the caterpillar, he was not so with regard to the existence of the caterpillar itself, and the curious observations which he had made upon it; and that being myself, two years ago, at Braubach on the Rhine, in the state of Nassau, I remarked a cultivator (the innkeeper of the place) engaged in pulling off such of the leaves of his vines as were coiled up, and he told me it was to destroy an insect which made great havoc in them. I opened several of these leaves, and found in them a very small caterpillar, which I examined with a lens; I perceived that it was the caterpillar described by Bosc, and which I had also previously observed in the environs of Paris. I expressed my surprise to