410 [November 



on sycamore-leaves without injury to their health ; and in that case we 

 might expect that the pencils of the one would more or less partially assume 

 the color peculiar to the pencils of the other. Owing to the very gre;it 

 seal city of almost all species of insects in 1864, 1 was unable to procure 

 a sufficient number of individuals to try such experiments on a large 

 scale ; but such as they are, the results of my experiments, as extracted 

 from my Journal, are given below. Since it is possible that on the 

 supposition of teasel/aris being identical with Antiphola, or, in other 

 words, that they are mere Phytophagic Varieties of one species, there 

 might be some peculiarity in the constitution of that species, causing it 

 to deviate from the general law, and suflFer in its health or even die 

 from change of food, I also tried the experiment of feeding upon oak- 

 leaves Aiitiphola that had been found upon basswood, and feeding 

 upon basswood-leaves Antlphohi which had been found upon oak. 

 The results given below show that it is possible to so shift them, though 

 not perhaps with perfect impunity, and that a basswood-feeding Aatl- 

 phold lived for at least 12 days upon oak-leaves, and an oak-feeding 

 Antiphola grew and flourished for 22 days upon basswood leaves, and 

 two days afterwards spun up. In all these cases, except where other- 

 wise specified, the larva? were well attended to and the leaves not suf- 

 fered to wilt. 



Breeding cage No. 1. Food-plant oak. This was a large cage containing 

 nearlv two cubic feet of space, with 3 or 4 inches of earth at the bottom and 

 the top and sides of wire-gauze, so that there was no possibility of any but 

 very minute larva escaping. It contained already, on Sept. 6, several score of 

 larva; of many dififerent species, but of course no Halesidota. and I added others 

 subsequently. 



Sept (7. Placed in it 4 H. Antiphola taken off basswood. all lively, one i- 

 grown, two i-grown and one |-grown. 



Sept. 9. Shifted on to fresh leaves. Found two lively Antiphola; the other 

 two had disappeared. 



Sept 12. Shifted. Found two lively Antiphola. 



Sept. 14. Shifted. Found one lively Antiphola; the other one had disap- 

 peared. 



Sept. 18. Shifted. Found one lively Antiphola, but it had not grown percep- 

 tibly since Sejit 14. 



Sept. 22. Shifted. The one remaining Antiphola had disappeared. 



As I had several larvfe that had spun up among some dry leaves at the bot- 

 tom of this cage, I did not search among the dry leaves for dead Antiphola. 

 The missing ones might therefore have died of the change of food, or they 



