Method of Bearing Lepidopteva. 155 



of these posts nail the other board, and the frame of your cage is com- 

 plete. Now stretch good mosquito netting around both sides and one 

 end of your frame, fastening it with leathered tacks to the edges of the 

 top and bottom board, and also to the corner posts. 'The cage is now 

 finished, except the door, for which make a frame of the same size as 

 the end of the cage left open ; stretch the mosquito netting over this 

 frame, hang your door to one of the corner posts by leather hinges of 

 the proper length, and your apparatus is all complete. It only remains 

 to find the larvae on their food-plants ; place branches of the food-plant 

 in jars of water, cover the top of the jar with cotton, to prevent the 

 larv?e from crawling down into the water, put them on their food, set 

 them in the cage, and you have nothing to do but watch them feed, 

 moult and grow, until they are ready for the final change to the chrys- 

 alid state. Of course the food must be renewed as often as it be- 

 comes in the least degree withered and stale. 



In such a cage as the one described the writer has reared great num- 

 bers of many diurnal Lepidoptera, as well as the nocturnal and crepus- 

 cular species. 



All lepidopterous larvre, when about to assume the pupa state, 

 change color, become restless, refuse food, and those that undergo their 

 transformation in the ground leave the food plant and wander uneasily 

 about the bottom of the cage. These signs should never be disregarded, as 

 they show an effort of instinct to find a suitable locality in which to undergo 

 the wonderful change from the larval to the pupa stage. The larvae 

 of Eacles imperiaUs (Hiibner), one of our largest and most beautiful of 

 nocturnals, which is of a bright green color during the feeding season, 

 in a few hours changes to a dirty brown along the back and sides ; the 

 feet lose the power of holding to the branches of the food plant ; the 

 skin of the insect becomes stiif and horny ; it descends to the bottom 

 of the cage, and crawls clumsily around, seeking an outlet for escape. 

 The same facts, in different degrees, may be noticed of nearly all spe- 

 cies. When this is the case, fill a large earthen jar or wooden bucket 

 two thirds full of mellow loam ; put your larva; into the vessel, tie a 

 piece of mosquito netting over the top or invert a bell glass over them. 

 In a few hours, after having wandered around the sides of the jar 

 many times, they bury themselves, and no further trouble is neces- 

 sary than to set the jar in a moist, cool cellar, until the following spring. 

 Larvee of the same age, fed in the same cage, and in the same way, 

 u'ill differ a week or ten days in coming to maturity ; but all may be placed 

 in the same jar for the final change, care being taken to disturb the jar 

 as little as possible while untying the netting or removing the bell glass, 

 to put in the succeeding specimens. When your larvae are all fuU 



