4 THK entomologist's RECORD. 



find tliat you have gained much, in point of easiness, by your 

 troublesome objection. No ! Sir. I will grant that you don't 

 care for larva- li anting because it is too hard work, or because you can't 

 find enough to make it interesting. I will grant that it is easier 

 to box insects off treacle, than to beat the woods at night with a lantern 

 hanging between your teeth. I will grant that it is perhaps more com- 

 fortable to net Colias edusa in a clover-field than to work up to your middle 

 in a Norfolk broad for pupfe of Leucanidae. But that it is more worthy of 

 the name of sport, that it exercises the imagination better, that it kindles 

 more love of the beautiful and mystical dame Nature — if you want to 

 hear this asserted, you must go to some other than yours truly. 



Tlie Life-fiistory of a Lepidopterous Insect, 



Comprising some account of its Morphology and Physiology. 

 By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



(Continued from Vol. V., page 294). 



Chap. III. 

 PARTHENOGENESIS or AGAMOGENESIS. 



Turning now to our own countrymen, we find that Newman in the 

 monograj)h already alluded to, gives a list of those Icpidoptera in which 

 entomologists had up to that date (1856), noticed the phenomenon 

 of parthenogenesis. These were Sphinx ligustri, Smerinthus popidi, S. 

 ocellafns, Liparis dispar, Psilura monacha, D'doha caeruleocephala, Sa- 

 turnia poh/pliemnx, S. pyri, S. carpini, Orgyia gonostiguia, 0. antiqua, 

 Bombi/.v viori, B. qnercns, Arctia caia, A. viUica, A. casta, Odonestis pini, 

 O.potatorid, Lasiocampa qiiercifolia, Psi/che fusca, P. helix, P. gramineUa, 

 P. nitidella, Solenohia iriqnetreUa, S. dathrella, S. licheneUa, but we are 

 hardly likely to agree with him that among lepidoptera " agamic ex- 

 ception to diprotogenous reproduction becomes characteristic." The 

 observations by means of which the above list was formulated, were in 

 many instances " made carelessly," and the records of some of the 

 observations " penned in terms the most loose and unsatisfactory," yet 

 Newman declared that after eliminating the probably apocryphal 

 " there remains a substratum of truth, which carries conviction to every 

 ingenuous mind." 



We learn further from this paper that " in the case of Bomhyx mori, 

 Ijdnlocampa (Bomhyx) qiiercus, and Pysche helix, the experiments have 

 Ijeen j)erformed with a care and precision that leave nothing to be 

 desired." It would appear that those on B. querent weve made by the 

 late Mr. Tardy of Dublin, but that, although the facts were well known, 

 they were never published in any of the entomological magazines in 

 extenso. The following summary of the experiments is then given : — 

 '• Mr. Tardy reared a single female of L. quercus from the larva. The 

 female laid abundance of eggs in the breeding-cage ; the eggs in due 

 time became larva?, fed as usual, and spun up. These circumstances 

 attracted Mr. Tardy's close attention ; but he felt inclined to suppose 

 that, without his knowledge, a male might have gained access to the 

 female. Still, he was so interested in the subject, that he determined 

 to repeat the experiment, and to guard against the possibility of mistake. 



