NOtES ON LtFE-HIStORlKS, LARV^, EtC. IST' 



viewed sideways. Before reaching the cap-like top, tlie cells gradually 

 increase in size. At the topmost point there is a comparatively deep 

 depression of small circumference. — H. L. Wood, Old Grammar 

 School House, Ashford, Kent. Aw/ust, 189G. 



Breeding T.eniocampa miniosa. — This species was exceedingly 

 abundant in the New Forest, at the end of May, on dwarfed oaks 

 outside the plantations, and I found many in the webs that served 

 as their nurseries. What a difticult species this is to breed ! I have 

 tried for three seasons to get a good series. I have brought home 

 hundreds of healthy larvfe, and have sleeved them out on growing 

 oak. They have fed up nicely, and then, one night, have eaten holes in 

 the sleeve and disappeared. Now I bring them in when in the last skin, 

 and keep them in a breeding cage with sand in the bottom, but they 

 produce very few pupa\ They go flabby, hang by the two middle 

 claspers, and go bad and smell most evilly. They produce numbers 

 of ichneumon cocoons, and even if they go down in the sand and 

 make a cocoon, they, as often as not, go bad in it. Can anyone tell 

 me how to breed them, supposing I have any patience to try again ? — 

 E. A. Bowles, M.A., F.E.S., Myddelton Hall, Waltham Cross. 

 September, 1896. 



Descriptions of Geometrid eggs. — Egg of Angerona prunaria.^ 

 Small for size of moth. In shape a somewhat flattened oval, 

 attached by long side. Length to breadth as about 3 : 2. The ends 

 gently rounded. A depression on the top surface occupying about 

 one-third of the area and situated rather nearer one end than the other. 

 Colour at first pale green, then, on second day, gradually changing 

 to a reddish hue with a tinge of green around the depression on 

 upper surface of egg. The egg appears to be minutely pitted. [The 

 foregoing was made under a two-thirds lens] . Under a one-sixth lens 

 very little more can be made out, except that the pitting is made up 

 of exceedingly minute polygonal cells, running in oblique, curved series 

 from the depression at the top to the attached side of the egg. The 

 sloping walls of the depression appear to be made of still more minute 

 cells. The two ends are somewhat evenly rounded with no appreciable 

 trace of the micropylar depression. The red colour assumes under the 

 higher power a somewhat crimson hue and appears to be more confined 

 to the ends, the upper and lower surfaces being much greener. Eggs 

 laid, .June 27th. Description made, June 30th. Hatched, -July 9th. 



Egg of Acidalia subsericeata. — Oval in shape, laid on its long 

 side, long side to short side about 4 : 3. Very pale yellowish at first 

 and then changes colour slowly until in about four days it appears to be 

 of a deep orange colour to the naked eye. Under a ^ lens, it is seen 

 to be of a pale orange colour, with somewhat irregular patches of 

 reddish orange scattered sparingly over the egg. These are somtimes 

 almost dark enough to be called blood coloured. The egg is 

 beautifully pitted with minute, but regular depressions, and the upper 

 surface of the egg {i.e., the surface opposite to that by which it is 

 affixed) has a long central depression, the sloping sides being apparently 

 composed of somewhat smaller and finer cells than the pits which 

 ornament the sides. Two or three of the dark orange-red spots 

 always surround this rim. The eggs remained deep orange during 

 the fifth day, but on the sixth became somewhat blackish, the 

 depressed area retaining some of its orange tinge. The eggs hatched 



