MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 511 



sound these pupa sometimes make when wriggling on being molested ; at the 

 time, however, I attached no importance to this, and it did not occur to me that 

 the larva would injure it in any way. 



The cannibal larva prepared for pupation 3 days later on the 28th and 

 pupated on the night of 29th — 30th, and a normal imago issued on the 13th 

 September. 



There can be no doubt that the caterpillar actually devoured the pupa. 



CECIL E. C. FISCHER. 

 Dehra Dun, 17th September 1907. 



No. XXIV.— NOTE IN REGARD TO THE HABITS OF.THE 



PRAYING MANTIS. 



Referring to Mr. Dunbar Brander's note, on his naving observed a Mantis 

 shed its skin and then proceed to eat it. The mere shedding of its skin by 

 this insect, an othopterous one, is an ordinary occurrence in the process of 

 growth, and when observed by me the chitin split down the back and the 

 insect proceeded to crawl out of the opening, growing appreciably during the 

 operation. I have never, however, yet seen this insect eat its skin, possibly the 

 one observed by Mr. Dunbar Brander was very hungry or more likely had an 

 abhorrence of waste and considered it a sound idea to stow away its cast off 

 coat with the object of patching up the new one as soon as ever it became 

 uncomfortably tight ? 



L.K. MARTIN. 

 Chanda, C. P., 15th August 1907. 



No. XXV.— SEXUAL ATTRACTION IN LEPIDOPTERA. 

 About the end of August I had a number of pupae of Clania crameri, a 

 psycid moth very common here, in their thorn-covered cases. The first moth 

 to emerge was a female, a grub-like creature destitute of wings, legs, and 

 antennae, which under normal conditions never leaves its larval case. As I 

 had known of males being captured at rest on larval cases containing females, 

 I put the moth in a small tin box in my pocket as I went out in the evening, 

 with the intention of trying " sembling " by putting it in a muslin bag in a 

 place likely to be haunted by males. Just about dusk as I was picking up 

 some pyralid larval from a low creeping plant my attention was attracted by 

 the buzz of an insect close to my waist. I thought at first it was a beetle, 

 but when a minute later it returned I saw that I was mistaken, and whipped 

 it up with my net as it hovered over my pocket. It was a male C. crameri. 

 The sexual sense must have been remarkably keen to enable it to detect 

 the presence of a female shut up in a box tin in my pocket. I put out this 

 female and one or two others, which emerged later on, in muslin bags tied in 

 the branches of bu&hes in my garden, and they proved so attractive that I 

 found quite a dozen males at one time or another at rest on the bags. 



W. HOWARD CAMPBELL. 

 Gooty, 28th October 1907. 



