144 THE ENXOMOLOOrlSTS RECORD. 



if there were much less than the quarter of the whole, which the 

 Mendelian theory leads us to expect, it might indicate that there is 

 a male lactinilor which has the character of (/mssiilariata, and, there- 

 fore, cannot be distinguished from it except by breeding it with a lacti- 

 rolnr J , in which case all the females produced from such an union 

 should be lacticolor. 



Not all Mendelian cases are so simple, for there may be two or 

 more characters which are inherited separately, but it seems worth 

 while to call the attention of entomologists to the matter, for most of 

 the work upon the Mendelian theory has been done upon vertebrate 

 animals and flowering plants, and it would be of great value to have 

 additional evidence from insects ■. 



Notes on Breeding Angerona prunaria.l 



By C. P. PICKETT, F.E.S. 

 1 had long beard of the great number of lepidoptera that were to 

 be obtained in Raindean Wood, near Folkestone, amongst others, a 

 line dark speckled form of Amjcrona priDwrui, a species that had long 

 interested me, and, as I wanted examples of this particular aberration 

 to cross with others that I was at the time breeding from Chingford 

 parents, 1 paid a visit there towards the end of June, 1898, in order to 

 obtain examples. A long but beautiful walk brought me to the wood, 

 and 1 at length found myself in the wide rides, in which insect life ap- 

 peared to be teeming. In the ho^jes of obtaining a J A. prunaria I 

 beat all the afternoon, but, whilst 1 disturbed large numbers of Bapta 

 taminata, F>. tenicrata. Asthma candidata, &c., I did not obtain the 

 desired A. pniitaria, although just as it was getting dusk 1 brought 

 down a beautiful freshly-emerged Geiwictra papilionarla. At its usual 

 time, however, the males put in an appearance, zigzagging up and down 

 .the rides, the flight, as at Chingford, lasting little more than half an hour. 

 Six males (of the many seen) were captured, and four of these were of 

 the desired form, two others being banded aberrations. Two of the 

 dark speckled forms were very fresh, and these were retained alive 

 until 1 returned to London, in the hopes of crossing them with i^ s of 

 the Chingford race, although 1 felt much disappointed that no $ had 

 come my way at Raindean. 1 returned to London two days later, and 

 found several ? s of the Chingford race out in the breeding-cages, so 

 I enclosed one of the Raindean J s in a cage with three J s, ri:., a 

 plain orange one, a light-banded one, and a medium-banded one. It 

 paired the same evening wdth the medium-banded female. This had 

 the band on the edge of the wings of an intermediate shade, between 

 the very pale and the dark orange banded ones. The other 3 , given 

 precisely the same chances, in another cage, did not pair, so that only 

 one pairing was obtained. The ova, luckily, were fertile, and the first 9 , 

 on the first evening after pairing, produced some 00 ova, on the second 

 evening 50 were laid, and on the third 10, some 150 eggs in all. These 

 hatched in twelvedays from laying. The larvie wereplacedin three cages, 

 fed entirely on privet until September, when they commenced hyberna- 



* A translation of Mendel's ori^inul paper will be found in the JoitriKil of the 

 [loyal IIoiiiciillKial Society, ItlOl, \o\. xxvi, and a full account in Jl/f»rffi's iVi»(- 

 (ip'lrs of Ileriditji. by W. Bateson. F.E.S. (Canib. l/niv. Press.) 



I Abstrac^l of pai)er read b(>fore che City of London Entomological and Natural 

 History Society, March Srd, 1903. 



