Cl)£ Canadian ^ntomolDqist. 



VOL. XIII. LONDON, ONT., NOVExMBER, 1881. No. 11 



ON THE LIFE DURATION OF THE HETEROCERA (MOTHS). 



BY J. A. LINTNER, ALBANY, N. Y, 



Read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at its Cincinnati 



Meeting, August, 1881. 



I have been requested by Mr. Edwards, who has presented to the 

 Association an interesting and valuable paper, " On the Length of Life 

 of Butterflies," to supplement it with some remarks on the Life Duration 

 of the Heterocera. 



The period of time passed by insects in their perfect stage, is an item 

 in their history to which, so far as I know, very little attention has been 

 paid. It has not hitherto been made a special subject of inquiry. When 

 we seek to answer the question, we find that very few of our published 

 observations bear upon it. The little that is known upon this point, in 

 the Heterocera, would not authorise the presentation of these notes before 

 this body, were it not that a confession of our ignorance should, and I 

 hope may, serve as an incentive to the examination of the interesting 

 question. 



It must prove a difficult field of investigation. Observations made 

 upon species in confinement, deprived of food and subjected to other 

 unnatural conditions, would give only approximate results. Even here we 

 find our knowledge extremely limited. Outside of the Sphingidse and the 

 Bombycidae, scarcely anything has been done by our Lepidopterists in 

 rearing entire broods of species. In these two families the eggs can be 

 easily obtained, either by the " sembling " method (attraction of the male 

 by the exposure of a newly-emerged female), or by simply pinning a cap- 

 tured female. Several species of the Phalsenidse are quite prompt in 

 extruding their eggs upon being pinned, even after having been tempor- 

 arily subjected to anaesthetic influence. But in the extensive family of 

 Noctuidse — with the winged forms of which we are so familiar, and of 

 which our knowledge, therefore, should be the more complete — it is diffi- 

 cult to obtain the eggs under the restraint of confinement. I have never 



