•94 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



The species comprising the genus Qrapia of this country, are subject 

 to very perplexing variations. Mr. Edwards, in vol. v, p. 148, Can. Ent,, 

 writes that Mr. Mead of New York, by experiment, identified Grapta 

 dry as with comma. Two females of Grapta dry as were tied in a muslin 

 bag, which was attached to a branch of Hop-vine, on the 3rd of July. 

 " The result was a large number of eggs laid on the leaves and in the 

 "bag." Tne eggs were all hatched on the 5th, and the first ones began 

 to change on the 21st (he does not state the month, but as the imagines 

 appeared on the 30th, I suppose the time to be August). "Towards 

 ^'maturity some of- the larvse were white ; the others were black, like the 

 " larvae represented in Mr. Edward's plate of comma." 



Here, then, is one experiment with " upwards of sixty " larvae, of 

 what is said to be the product of dryas, resulting in giving imagines of 

 true comjiia. As Mr. E. does not state how many white adult larvae were 

 ;seen, it appears to me that this experiment, although a good one, does 

 not prove the leaves of the hop to be free from eggs of another variety, 

 and it may be possible that a female of comma visited that vine prior to 

 the bag being placed over the branch. We have no direct evidence that 

 all were the product of d?yas. 



Messrs. Edwards, Saunders, Scudder and Mead deserve great credit 

 for their labors in metamorphic Entomology, but it appears to me that a 

 link is missing — the admixture of the sexes prior to the deposition of the 

 eggs. Were the dryas females the selection of comma males ? 



As illustrating the confusion in which the species of Grapta stand at 

 present, two specimens sent to Mr. Edwards were stated by him to be 

 Jjrogne and gracilis., and two similar ones sent to Mr. Strecker were 

 reported as fannus and comma. Faunus is taken on Anticosti, and I am 

 therefore inclined to think that the latter is dimorphic with gracilis. I 

 found a larva of a Grapta feeding on wild currant, on Anticosti, a 

 description of which was sent to Mr. Edwards, of West Virginia, who 

 •says : " I don't know what to make of the larva of Grapta you describe. 



were as follows : "It was ascertained that silk worms fed on vine leaves yielded silk 

 ** of a red color; when they had lettuce alone they gave cocoons of an emerald green; 

 ■" nettle leaves produced Tiolet silk, and it was also found that numerous combinations 

 "" of colors were the result of a varied diet of mixed leaves, fed during the last 20 

 ^' days of the larva period. Yellow, red, green and violet seem to be^the colors most 

 ■^'successfully produced." 



