462 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



[May, 



and some gauze. Place the bottle in the center of the dish 

 and fill around it with clean earth nearly to the level of the 

 top of the bottle. This holds the bottle in 

 place and furnishes natural conditions for the 

 larvae which pupate upon or beneath the sur- 

 face of the ground. The bottle should be 

 filled with water, the food leaves placed with 

 their stems in it and the gas chimney set over 

 them, resting upon the earth in the dish, the 

 upper end being closed by a removable cover 

 of gauze attached to a rim of pasteboard, 

 which can be very quickly and easily con- 

 trived. For the sake of cleanliness it is well 

 to cover the earth in the dish with a piece of white blotting or 

 other paper, which can be changed as often as necessary until 

 larvae mature, when the earth should be left accessible to 

 species which pupate beneath the surface. 



A little care in arranging the food leaves so that one or more 

 are in contact with the bottom of the cage will insure the speedy 

 return of any larva which drops off. 



The writer bred a number of species from eggs with this style 

 of apparatus the past season with very small percentage of loss. 

 Large species can, of course, only be cared for in these cages in 

 their earlier stages, and a larger house, upon the same principle, 

 can be provided by substituting a box for the tomato can, a 

 larger bottle and a cage made of three sheets of glass eight by 

 twelve or ten by twelve inches. The three glasses are placed 

 on end, with edges joining so as to form a hollow prism, and 

 bound together by a few strands of fine wire wrapped around 

 the prism at top and bottom. A cover of gauze and pasteboard 

 can easily be made. With this larger cage the largest bombycids 

 can be successfully reared if too many be not placed together. 

 A further advantage of the apparatus described above is that 

 the larvae are all the time in plain view without opening the 

 cage. The neck of the bottle of water should always be closed 

 by a tuft of cotton if the leaf stems do not fully close it. The 

 cages should be placed where there is plenty of light and air, 

 but not in direct sunlight. 



