8 THE ENTOMOLOGIST* S RECORD. 



in which to pupate, but no silk appeared to have been used in their 

 construction, they were from two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half inches 

 below the surface. Of the remainder, I cannot speak with certainty, 

 their cells, if any, must have been extremely fragile. 



Imagines. — On September 2nd, a J specimen emerged from a 

 pupa that had been out of doors for several weeks. I found it in the 

 cage at about 8 p.m. ; its wings were then fully expanded, and it 

 had probably been out for several hours. It looked so exactly like 

 S. populi that, at the first glance, I thought it must be a belated 

 specimen of this species from an 1894 pupa. At rest, its position was 

 similar to that usually adopted by S. pnpiili, with the fore-wings 

 hanging back, and the hind-wings protruding far beyond the costa of 

 the anterior pair. The only other emergence was a crippled J , on 

 the 15th; but Mr. J. A. Clark tells me that he has bred a specimen 

 from a larva which I passed on to him. My male specimen is super- 

 ficially more like the ? than ^ parent, though a close examination 

 reveals the fact that in many faint, but important markings, it follows 

 IS. ocellatuft. The wings are narrower than those of N. populi, 

 especially the secondaries, the notch at the anal angle being very 

 distinct. There are three dark patches on the fore-wings, to which I 

 desire to call attention ; two are situated near each other towards the 

 angle of the outer and hind margin, whilst the third is placed at 

 about the middle of the outer transverse band. These patches are of 

 very general occurrence throughout the genus (using this term in its 

 widest sense), being especially distinct, and evidently forming pro- 

 tective markings, in S. qxwrcus, and some of the American and exotic 

 species. They are present in both S. ocellatus and S. pojjuli, strong and 

 dark in the former, faint only in the latter, but in both I fancy they 

 have lost their (?) original significance, and in .S'. populi are probably 

 disappearing. In the hybrid, though they are scarcely so strong as in 

 *S'. oct'llatm, they appear to me to partake more of the (?) ancestral 

 character. The hind tibiae of the hybrid moths possess two spines 

 only, as in the parent species. No trace of the frenulum can be ob- 

 served with a hand lens, and I did not consider it worth sacrificing my 

 specimens in order to determine the presence or absence of this 

 character, which exists only in the male parent in a rudimentary state. 

 While examining the ocellated spot on the hind-wing of the hybrid 

 (this spot, by-the-bye, is rather lunular than ocellated), it occurred to 

 me that Triptogon vioilctitus, a large North American species, had 

 rudimentary ocellated spots of somewhat similar shape and appearance 

 on the secondaries ; but a visit to our national collection showed that 

 this character in T. modesUis had no close resemblance to the ocellated 

 spot of the hybrid. What it did very clearly show, however, was how 

 similar stripes to those on the secondaries of Acherontia atmpo.s, 

 SpJiimr convolmli, etc., may become modified into the rudiments of an 

 ocellated spot, thus giving us a hint as to the way in which the 

 perfected eye spots of -S'. ocellatus have been evolved. 

 (To be continued.) 



Notes on the Distribution, Habits, Egg & Larva of Acidalia immorata. 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



In 1868, Mr. S. Stevens exhibited " a moth from the collection 

 of the late Mr. Desvignes, labelled imtnoraria, Hub., which it was sug- 



