EGGS AND OVIPOSITION OP OCNOGYNA BOETICA. 265 



two being unable to rid themselves entirely of their skin, and the 

 third drying up after rolling over and over in a very restless convulsive 

 manner. 



Sixth instar : Ground colour, blackish. Head dark-brown, shiny. 

 It has a transverse white line above the mouth (visible also in 5th 

 stage) and a whitish mark along the lobe divisions above. The 

 sides and back of the head are light brown. Dorsal white stripe 

 narrow and more reduced. In the first specimen examined It exists 

 only on thoracic segments and is very narrow. The whole of the 

 ground colour is now blackish, not more so subdorsally than elsewhere. 

 Ventral surface grey, claspers dirty whitish. No light lateral line in 

 this specimen. Tubercles highly developed, rounded, looking like sea- 

 urchins. They are of a dirty whitish colour when seen under the micro- 

 scope, but the swollen bases of the numerous hairs which spring from 

 them are black, and so close together as to give a black appearance to 

 the whole tubercle under a hand lens or to the naked eye. The larva now 

 bristles with stiffish golden-brown hairs, and they are pretty evenly 

 distributed, not being any longer chiefly confined to the dorsal, sub- 

 dorsal and lateral border tubercles. The long black hairs are propor- 

 tionately less numerous than before. The head, true legs, plates, and 

 tubercles, so black in the earlier stages, showed a tendency to become 

 lighter in the fifth stage, and this is accentuated in the sixth stage. 



The surviving larvae were all placed out on growing groundsel on 

 February 12th. Those still in the 5th stage ate well, but most of them 

 came to grief at the 5th moult. The few which reached the 6th stage 

 lived some time, two remaining alive until the 2nd week in March, 

 but they utterly refused to eat. They finally dried up. 



Description or Plate IX. 

 Newly-hatched larva of Ocnogyna hoetica. 

 Fig. 1. Dorsal view of larva in 1st instar x 30. 

 Fig. la. Prothoracic plate x 60 (about). 



Fig. 2. Lateral tubercles of thoracic and first two abdominal segments. 

 Fig. 3. Ventral view of 1st, 2nd and 3rd abdominal segments. 



Eggs and oviposition of Ocnogyna boetica (uith plate). 



By Dr. T. A. CHAPMAN. 



I have so far obtained only one ^ and one 5 of this species, from 

 pupae received from Spain ; they luckily, however, emerged nearly 

 enough together to secure a pairing, and the ? thereafter laid all her 

 eggs. I thus had an opportunity of making a somewhat limited, but 

 interesting, observation of the oviposition of an apterous moth of the 

 Arctiidae, a chance that I had not previously had. The J is very 

 woolly, and not unlike a rather small $ Nytisia Impidaria as regards 

 outline and covering of hairs, but the hairs are thicker, shorter and 

 more woolly, and the legs are less spiderlike, in fact, quite short. 

 Before she had paired I remarked the tendency she had to hide, get 

 below or behind something. This was very marked afterwards just 

 before she began to lay her eggs. Unfortunately, in my ignorance, I 

 gave her no satisfactory residence ; she managed, however, to get 

 pretty well out of sight in an angle of the box, behind some shoots of 

 broom which I had placed for her comfort. In this position she had 

 forced the end of the abdomen as far into the narrow space as she 



