LIFE-HISTORIES. 307 



and is set showing the underside. In early July I took a single speci- 

 men of Colias hyale and another last month ; but they are not in any 

 numbers in this part of the country. M. stcllatarnni is now dashing 

 about in some numbers. — H. Douglas Stockwell, 2, Albert Koad, 

 Dover. September 6th, 1901. 



Mellinia ocellaris at Mucking. — I took a very nice specimen of 

 Mellinia ocellaris\\, sugar in my garden last night. It looked quite 

 like a pale M. (jihago, but 'puzzled me, as its behaviour was so very 

 unlike that species, ilf. gilva<io is, as a rule, very quiet when the 

 light falls on it, but this example of M. ocellaris flew off and at the 

 light, and off again, and round, and it was not until I turned the 

 bright rays of my acetylene lamp upon the ground that I could pull it 

 up and capture it. Has anyone noticed this peculiarity before ? Is 

 the species taken regularly anywhere in Britain ? — (Rev.) C. R. N. 

 Burrows, Mucking Vicarage. September lith, 1901. 



:ig^OTES ON LIFE-HISTORIES, LARY^, &c. 



Eggs of Lasiocampa fasciatella var. excellens.— These are appar- 

 ently scattered loosely like those of Ladoccunpa qnercits, but are rather 

 larger than those of the latter species. Each forms a very broad rounded 

 oval, but varying somewhat, some almost round, but invariably 

 flattened on the two sides and deeply depressed as well. Colour dark 

 umber-brown ; with a lens the ground-colour is seen to be pinkish 

 or flesh-colour, much mottled and splashed with very dark umber, 

 almost black, much like the coloration of a scarlet-runner bean 

 only with more dark and less light, and the mottlings are finer 

 (in relation to size) on the egg. At one end, rather the blunter of 

 the two, there is a slightly flattened disc with a large and distinct 

 very dark coloured spot in it. This is surrounded in some eggs 

 by a margin or ring of the pale ground colour, making it a very 

 distinct feature, but in other ova the ring or margin is very narrow and 

 the spot is therefore far less conspicuous. The general colour of the egg 

 also varies, the ground colour of some being pale brown instead of the 

 pink described above. The micropyle is slightly depressed, the general 

 surface of egg dead and covered with minute pitting (not enough light 

 to distinguish structural detail). The eggs remind one on the one hand 

 of those of the Pachygastriid group — dead surface, scattered, not attached, 

 and somewhat in coloration — and are nearest to Pachi/gastria trifolii, on 

 the other hand, the flattened sides and especially the plan of coloration 

 remind one of PnecHocawpa popidi, whilst again in some eggs there are 

 traces of double dark bands that remind one of the eggs of Cosmotriche 

 putatoria and Eittricha qnercifulia. I opened one of the eggs but it con- 

 tained nothing but a turbid greenish fluid, which appeared to contain 

 granules. The roughness or deadness of surface appears to be due to 

 small raised points or knobs, which, so far as I can make out, in certain 

 parts of the egg, are placed at the points of a hexagonal network. 

 A small and roughly marked rosette of hexagonal cells is present round 

 the micropyle. — A. Bacot. [Received from Ernst Heyne, January, 

 1899. The eggs unfortunately did not hatch.] 



Larva of Anthrocera trifolii hybernating a second winter. — I 



