98 REPORT ON THE LICHENS OF EPPING FOREST.
ance as to be extremely difficult of detection : this 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
Psychides, many of which feed on wall and tree-dwelling lichens,
such as Physcia pulverulenta, Physcia parietina, Lecanora
candelaria, and Buellia canescens, have larvae which form cases ;
which cases they carry 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 in colour 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-
right position, that is, perpendicularly to the surface upon
which it is resting, so as to exactly simulate, in position, size
and colour, 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 congeners) never to live on the ground, nor to change
from one tree to another. This creature has been recorded from
Epping Forest. We 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.
There 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
thalli of larger species. We have observed living specimens
of Peltigera spuria attacked by a flesh-coloured fungus, Illos-
porium carneum, which forms numerous small, circular, floccu-