From H. T. Stainton   22 April 1859

My dear Sir

I have written a few lines to M ^r Seaman & have forwarded your letter.

I return his enclosed. I had already corresponded with Westwood on the subject but he like myself is equally in the dark as to the proximate cause of their appearance. They may be attached to the new wood, or they may have bred in the old maltings/mattings &c &c.

That they are unconnected with “itch” no Entomologist would doubt, & that appears to have been the prevailing alarm at Colchester, where these minute Acari appear to have “astonished the natives”.

For the Eupithecia bred from an Umbellifer many thanks. I am not certain that I had the species previously, but the genus is very difficult.

Your small moth is Nepticula anomalella: the larva of which makes the tortuous tracks in rose-leaves, like that I enclose.

As your [illeg.] may be interesting to shew your school-children, I will return it tomorrow along with a primed & set specimen of the same, & a specimen of Nepticula aluetella an insect remarkable for its brilliancy & though rarely seen in the perfect state, abundant in the larva state in the leaves of alders

Yours very sincerely | H. T. Stainton