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XV. Contributions to the Knowledge of the Genus Anaphe, Walker, By Lord 



Walsingham, M.A., E.L.S. 



(Plates XLIV., XLV.) 



Read March 20, 1884. 



£ OB the specimens described in the present communication, I am indebted to the kind- 

 ness of Colonel J. H. Bowker, of Durban, Natal. In a letter dated July 4th, 1883, he 

 wrote to me as follows : — " I am sending by the ' Moor,' Union steamship, a little box 

 with a nest of the congregating moth. The larvae are most interesting, often denuding a 

 tree of its foliage ; they move in a body, sometimes ten or even twenty yards long, in 

 search of ' pastures new,' and when the time comes, form into a cluster, and form the nest 

 covered with a brown silk. Unless the change of climate has an effect, they will come out 

 about September next. I should suggest the nest being set up in a green-house, not too 

 hot, with a view towards the morning sun. A small nest which I sent to the Cape Town 

 Museum produced about 80; judging from the size of the two, the one I send ought to 

 produce about 300. The natives use the silk for medical purposes, somewhat as we use 

 oiled silk." The box reached me at the beginning of August 1883, and I was much 

 surprised to find that the larvae were alive and apparently healthy. Many of them 

 remained in the so-called nest, but bodies of from twenty to forty constantly came out 

 and moved about, always keeping close to it. They moved in a closely packed mass, 

 following a slightly curved line, much in the same position as that in which the small 

 cocoons may now be seen arranged in the interior of the large one. 



On the 9th of August I sent them to the Insectarium in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens, in Regent's Park, where they have been under the attentive care of Mr. 

 Arthur Thomson until about the middle of March. Mr. Thomson informs me that about 

 250 moths emerged from the large cocoon. The first on December 3rd, the last on 

 February 11th. One pair copulated and produced eggs. The eggs hatched, but although 

 the name of the food plant had been ascertained from Mr. G. Baker, at Kew, to be 

 Bridelia micrantha, Baillon, the dead leaves attached to the nest having enabled him to 

 identify it, it was found impossible to obtain, there or elsewhere, any thing sufficiently 

 nearly allied to it to induce the young larva? to feed, and they soon all died. Mr. Thomson 

 was successful, at my request, in finding in the glass case a few of their bodies, much 

 shrivelled, but, nevertheless, most interesting, as indicating the probable affinities of the 

 genus to which they belong. The appearance of the moths was followed by the emergence 

 of a number of dipterous parasites. The larvae did not finally enclose themselves in the 

 large cocoon until about a fortnight after they reached the Insectarium ; they must 

 therefore have been about 50 days without food. Some of them died, probably from 

 this cause, without entering the cocoon at all ; and I find that one or more have spun 

 themselves up in the outer covering of the main cocoon, without coining to maturity. 

 It will be seen that Colonel Bowker's estimate of the number sent was remarkably correct. 



SECOND SEKIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. II. 02 



