1899.] 139 



that yielded imagines had never advanced, even partially, out of their 

 cocoons; T came to the conclusion that it was probably due to there 

 being some hard substance, such as a dried leaf or another cocoon, 

 against the end of the cocoon, sufficient to prevent the pupa from 

 forcing its way through, but not sufficient to prevent the more power- 

 ful and better-equipped imago from doing so. In the case of No. 11 

 this seemed clearly the case, for there was a hard dry birch-leaf firmly 

 attached to the emergence-end of the cocoon, which had proved too 

 much for the pupa, though the moth had finally freed itself by forcing 

 a passage upwards just past the edge of the leaf. 



In the case of a few cocoons from which neither pupa nor moth 

 had appeared, I found that the moth had emerged from the pupa shell 

 as far as the limited space permitted, but had, like the pupa, been 

 unable to escape from the cocoon : this appeared to be due to there 

 being some insuperable obstruction against the end of the cocoon. 



It is stated by Buckler {loc. cit.) that the pupa, before breaking 

 through the cocoon, pushes the cocoon from a prone to a vertical 

 position. It may attempt to do this, but I think it is often impossi- 

 ble in confinement, owing to the cocoon being too firmly fixed among 

 the dried twigs, leaves, and moss at the bottom of the cage. My belief 

 is that the cocoon is spun among the moss with the emergence-end 

 higher than the other, and in any case there is no need for it to be 

 vertical before the pupa can stand upright more than half out of it, 

 for the pupa has the power of doing so even when its cocoon is nearly 

 horizontal. 



The pupa, after breaking through the cocoon, soon works its way 

 upwards out of it about as far as the ends of its wing-cases : there 

 it remains upright, generally either for a few days, after which it 

 further advances completely out of its cocoon and lies on the moss 

 for a few days more until the emergence of the moth, or else for the 

 whole pei'iod (which, it will be seen, varies much in duration) until 

 the disclosure of the moth. 



The Rectory, Corfe Castle : 



April 13tk, 1899. 



HUTEBOCEBOUS LEPIDOPTERA IN CORSICA IN 1898. 

 BY THE BEY. T. A. MAESHALL, M.A., F.E.S. 



The following list contains all the Corsican Lepidoptera which I 

 met with in 1898, except butterflies. These are omitted because I 



