1905.] 103 



viz., another Tortrix allied to H. hyernna, not unmixed with doubts 

 for which I could remember no possible foundation, except the re- 

 semblance, that I had <;ot my cocoons somehow shuffled together. I 

 awaited the result with some expectancy, and ultimately there came 

 out at the same time as the rest of the hyerana two specimens of that 

 species, a pale and a dark one. 



This did not absolve me from the suspicion of muddling them, 

 in fact, it rather made it somewhat possible. But having obtained 

 eggs, I found the young larvae took very kindly and at once to each 

 of two common garden perennial Lupins ; so that the Lupin is clearly 

 an alternative food plant. This, considering how common Lupins, of 

 one sort or another, if not L. crjiptantJius, are on the Riviera, and not 

 unfrequently cultivated as a crop, shows that the localization of 

 JS. hyerana cannot be due altogether to the want of available food. 



The Asphodel shoots on my young plants were so weak that a 

 few larvfe wrecked ihem at once, so that I should have done nothing 

 with the young hyerana larvse but for this unexpected knowledge of 

 an alternative diet. 



One of the peculiar habits of this species is that when the larva 

 has spun up at the end of March, it does not change to pupa, but 

 after a period I do not accurately know, but probably about two 

 weeks. In one instance in 1905, spun Feb. 12th, moulted to pale form 

 Feb. 23rd ; it moults into a larval form, differing little from that it 

 thus quits, except by the paleness and colourlessness of the chitinous 

 skin, the skin points are no longer dark and the chitin of the head is 

 quite pale, the hairs are about half the length, e.g., the longest on anal 

 plate were 2 mm., they are now just 1 mm., the internal anatomy 

 exhibits little but pale yellowish fat bodies, so that instead of greyish 

 olive-green, the larva is now a pale straw colour, curiously similar to 

 that of the imago. It continues in this state till the following 

 August before pupating. It possesses jaws very like those it has 

 just cast, but uses them for nothing except to eat the cast larval skin. 

 It then fixes the cast head, which it does not eat, by a little more 

 spinning, before taking the long summer rest. An empty cocoon 

 presents, the protruding pupa case, the pale larval skin cast at pupa- 

 tion, and a darker larval head behind some silk, and usually one 

 pellet of frass. Several cocoons afforded a wretched history of 

 cannibalism, probably perpetrated by a few of my last larvae, that I 

 thought had done feeding, before they really had, and so in default 

 of other food attacked their earlier spun-up brethren. In such a 

 case one finds, besides the skin cast at pupation, two ordinary heads, 



K 2 



