<^^ AND ^^^ 



JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



No. 8. Vol. I. November 15th, 1890. 



THE GENUS ACRONYCTA AND ITS ALLIES. 



By Ur. T. a. chapman. 

 {Continued from page 150.) 

 \CRONYCTA {Vimhiia) venosa. — It must be some 

 thirty years since I first reared this species, and was 

 impressed with its close resemblance, especially as 

 a pupa, to ruinicis and menyantJiidis, with which 

 species I was very familiar, and whose differences from psi and 

 leporina, the other species of Acronycta I knew most of, were 

 so much greater than separated them from voiosa. It was 

 therefore with much pleasure that I received a batch of fertile 

 ova from Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher, after having in vain tried to 

 secure ova from moths reared in captivity. I may have some- 

 thing further to say about the pairing of Acronyctas in confine- 

 ment, a subject on which, however, I am still nearly as much 

 in the dark as my experience of venosa would appear to indi- 

 cate ; for with this species I have entirely failed in three 

 several years ; yet Sepp relates that he obtained two larvse. 

 These happened to emerge together, a male and female, and, 

 pairing, provided him with a batch of eggs. The batch of 

 eggs I had was in fact two batches laid by the same moth, and 

 consisted of several hundred eggs. Having laid one batch, the 

 moth, finding, I presume, no tempting place to lay another, 

 disposed them as a second layer over the first. This was, of 

 course, an accident that would not happen in a state of 

 freedom, and was fatal to the hatching of the under layer. 

 Nearly the whole of each layer consisted of eggs laid in one 

 imbricated set, each o.^'g overlapping its neighbour about one- 

 fourth of its diameter. Each Qgg is overlaid by three others, 

 or, where a little irregularity occurs, by four others ; the regu- 

 larity of the arrangement was very exact ; in runiicis the eggs 



