THE GRADUAL DECADENCE OF LYCAE^fA AlilON^ 125 



with the skill and energy expended ; and we have to inform the 

 average man that, in 1870, the late Mr. Newman described the egg of 

 the species, whilst, in the same year, Mr. Porritt described the newly- 

 hatched larva, and that the whole of the life-history of the insect, 

 besides these two items, is a blank. 



Notes on the deviations in the Life= Histories of Bombyx quercus 



and B. calluna^. 



By Capt. B. BLAYDES THOMPSON. 



The above species and its variety are set down in Tlie Kiitoviolnijist 

 Synonijiiiic List as BomhyM quercus, Linn., v. callunae, Palmer, 

 v. S' roboris, Schrank ; and callunae is at the present time considered 

 as a variety of B. quercus. It was not always so, and there are still 

 many careful observers who keep what is known as an open mind on 

 the subject, as in the case of Tejihrosia bistortata {crepuscular la) and 

 T. crepuscularia (biandularia), and await the result of further investi- 

 gation. The sponsor of callunae was a Mr. Palmer, but 1 have failed 

 to make out who he was, and I have also been unable to find the 

 original description of callunae if one was ever published.*-' 



Among the many life-histories to which the signatiire of Edwd. 

 Newman is attached are those of Bonibi/.r callunae ( Kntoiiioku/ist, 

 vol. ii., p. 137), and, at the end, he gives a summary of the differ- 

 ences which he (or rather Mr. Backhouse and Mr. Doubleday, through 

 whom he had got the information) had perceived in what he called 

 the two " allied species," whatever that may have meant, for to my 

 mind all the species in the same genus may be taken to be allied. 

 Now these life-histories are so important, in attempting to illustrate 

 the eccentricities of the two insects under our consideration, that I 

 have taken copious extracts from them as a basis for my remarks. 

 With the question of species or variety, I do not propose to meddle, 

 but have tried to collect material scattered through our periodical 

 literature, personal information and notes, in such a manner as to 

 elicit information, and so to furnish a basis for further observation. 

 I will now proceed to read the two separate life-histories, and, as you 

 will see, they are so widely diflerent, that Newman goes out of his way 

 to set out no less than six specific characteristics in which the life- 

 histories diverge, and, in a subsequent volume of the KntoDiolot/ist, he 

 adds one more. Of JJ . callunae, 'tiewmnn writes {Kntoiii.,ltiG5,\). 137) : 

 " The male flies rapidly over the heather by day at the latter 

 end of May or beginning of June. Its flight is jerking or zigzag, and its 

 object to find the female, which rarely moves until impregnated. 

 The sexes remain in cop. about three hours, and about two hours 

 after the union takes place, the female takes wing and flies over the 

 heather with a pendulum-like motion, dropping her ova at random as 

 she flies, which, not having any glutinous covering, do not adhere to 

 any object which they may touch in falling. The act of oviposition 

 lasts from half-an-hour to three-quarters, and, when it is completed, 

 the emptied and exhausted female hides herself among the herbage, 

 and rarely survives the day. The young larva? emerge on the surface 

 of the earth, or on any object that may have arrested the fall of the 

 egg, and crawl up the stalks and twigs of L'alluna rulr/aris (common 



* Eefer to Staudinger's Catalogue (1871), p. 69. — Ed. 



