26 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



was over I glanced at the cocoon and found the larva had not yet 

 pv;pated. It remained in the larva state until December 6th, on which 

 day I noticed it had just changed, having taken over five weeks to effect 

 the change. My brother has been feeding up numbers of " garden 

 caterpillars," among others some Triphaena pronnha. These pupated 

 in early October, and on December 11th one of them emerged, possibly 

 being misled by the warmth into thinking summer had arrived ! — 

 Harold B. Williams, 82, Filey Avenue, Stoke Newington, N. 

 December 20th, 1910. 



The pupa of certain Depressarias - — On reading Mr. Sich's note 

 on the pupa of Deprefisaria applana in the Knt. Itecord for December, 

 1910, it occurred to me to see whether I could answer his question as 

 to that of r>. ciliella. Unfortunately I cannot find an example of the 

 pupa of that species in my drawers, and suppose I am without it. 

 I find the antenna curves round the wing in a good many species, but 

 ah:o has much the normal disposition in perhaps a majority of species. 

 The only one of them I have that is apparently parallel in this respect 

 with D. applana is D. assvnilclla. These two species are not usually 

 placed near together by systematists. It is just possible that this 

 point of structural identity may make it desirable to iiivestigate them 

 from other points of view, to determine whether they really are closely 

 related or whether this antennal feature has been separately acquired 

 by the two species. A reference to this structure in D. applana occurs 

 in Trans. Ent. Soc, 1893, p. 103.— T. A. Chapman, F.Z.S., Betula, 

 Eeigate. December 19th, 1910. 



The hour of emergence of Melit.ea aurinia. — The following 

 notes may be of interest. They were made on some larvae of the 

 species that we found near Marlborough, Wilts. The larvte frequent 

 an absolutely dry slope of "down," far from any water, and carefully 

 avoiding a damp meadow just beneath their locality, where, however, 

 the scabious does not flourish. The emergence was, we fear, un- 

 naturally retarded. The spring of 1910 was particularly sunless ; the 

 larvae spent a week in London, and when we finally brought them here, 

 food was not easily obtainable. The imagines emerged as follows : — 



The scarcity of males is due to the fact that we selected large larvae, 

 as we did not want to be troubled with many at Rugby. This makes 

 the result very unsatisfactory. Date of emenjence. — S s May 23rd to 

 June 11th. ? s May 26th to June 17th. Eleven of the 3 s were out 

 by June 7th; 41 of the 2 s between June 6th and June 10th (inclusive). 

 From the above tables the emergence (of either sex) appears to take 

 place in the early afternoon. Do the specimens fly the same afternoon, 

 if the sun is out to dry them, or do they wait one, or even two, days ? 

 The species dries its wings extremely slowly. One specimen " bled " 

 in setting, though it had emerged two days before it was killed. After 

 that we kept each specimen alive in the dark for four days. Even 

 when four days old the specimens absolutely refused to fly, though in 

 bright sunshine, and dropped repeatedly from a considerable height. 

 In curious contrast to the above results are those obtained by Mrs. 



