49 



tells us that they made earthen cocoons, at the end of July and 

 during the month of August, and turned to shining black chrysalids 

 and that the moths emerged in the following spring. These appear 

 to have included at least two species, one white, with black 

 spots, the only difference between male and female being in 

 " the beauty of the antennae," no doubt being referable to D. 

 Inhiicipeda, L. {nieutltastri, Esp). Then he goes on to say, 

 *' But I have had, from these same caterpillars, male butterflies 

 of which the whole upperside of the forewings was brownish 

 mouse grey ; their fore-legs and all round the head was the 

 colour of dead leaves and the rest of the body was covered with white 

 hairs mixed with a little grey. But the under side of the fore-wings 

 and the two sides of the hindwings were grey. I should have had 

 difficulty in accepting so grey a butterfly for the male of a female 

 so white, if I had not seen him place himself on her as if to couple 

 with her and remain in this position for more than sixteen hours 

 without a break, and if later on I had not had several of these same 

 butterflies which I bred from hare caterpillars which produce the 

 white black-dotted females." This description appears to leave no 

 doubt that he had both sexes of D. inendica and recognised them as 

 such, but as he, in common with the before mentioned authors, 

 assigned no names to the species that he dealt with, his work found 

 little mention in the writings of the later systematists. 



Thus we arrive at the time of Linnaeus, the first edition of his 

 " Systema Naturae " having already been published in 1735, and 

 succeeded by numerous other editions. The first edition of his 

 •' Fauna Suecica " appeared in 1746, and the tenth edition of the 

 " Systema Naturae," the edition now recognised as the starting point 

 by present day systematists, in 1758, but we find no mention of 

 menilica in any of them. 



In 1759 Clerck published his " Icones Insectorum," and on plate 

 III., Fig. 5, gives a somewhat grotesque yet unmistakable repre- 

 sentation of the male of our species and under it the name " Mendica," 

 thus, for the first time connecting the species with a name. 



In 1761 Linnaeus published the second edition of his " Fauna 

 Suecica," and there we find at page 299, v>endica placed in his 

 omnibus genus Bowhyx with the description " cinerea tota " and a 

 reference to Clerck's figure, thus showing that the male only was 

 referred to. 



In the same year Poda in " Insecta Musei Graecensis " accurately 

 describes the female but calls it Bo»ibijx liibricipeda and was evidently 

 unacquainted with the male (p. 87. No. 14). 



In 1766 Hufnagel in the "Berlin Magazine" {II. (4), p. 424) 

 concisely describes the male only under the name of llouibijx murina. 

 And in the same year Moses Harris published in the " Aurelian " a 

 really good figure of the female (pi. xxxv. m.) which he calls the 

 " Seven Spot Ermine " and says (p. 75) "I received this moth with 



