SelENtiFlC NOTES AND OUSERVATTONS. 20^ 



chiefly at from 10 to 15 feet from the gromid, at those points of the 

 tree-trunks from which the larger branches spring, but many were 

 within reach, and some were at the very bottom of the trunks. The 

 moths were of large size, many quite as large as the largest of those 

 which we, in Britain, designate colloquially, the " old Fen form." Of 

 those found near the bottom of the trunks, say within 2 or 3 ft. of 

 the ground, every female, without exception, was crippled. I observed 

 some 50 specimens thus crippled in one avenue of about 100 yards. 

 Those that I dislodged from the higher parts of the trunk, with the 

 aid of a stick, had usually well-developed wings, but they were quite 

 disinclined to use them, by day at least, as organs of flight. One 

 could not help being struck with the degeneracy of the wing develop- 

 ment, not so much in mere wing-expanse, which was very considerable, 

 but in the crumpled and crippled condition of the organs in such a 

 large percentage of specimens. I observed no males at Grenoble, 

 except two with crippled wings, resting on the tree-trunks. To carry 

 some of the specimens to the hotel, I deposited a dozen in the top of an 

 ordinary round felt hat, and wore it for an hour or two without disturb- 

 ing the occupants, which never stirred from the positions in which they 

 were placed. Three others I carried on a small piece of bark, just large 

 enough to allow them to cling to and for me to hold, but although the 

 rain collected on their wings, and might readily have disturbed them, 

 they did not move, nor did they during the five or six hours following, 

 when they were placed on a table. So far my observations had led 

 me to notice a great resemblance between this species and (hyyia. 



My next observation, however, was of a different character. Scat- 

 tered over the tree-trunks, on which the females were resting, were 

 their egg patches. These could be seen on all parts of the trunks, 

 from the base upwards. They varied in size, from patches two inches 

 long by one inch broad, to x^atches of less than half these measure- 

 ments. They were chiefly oval in shaj)e, and the eggs were snugly 

 encased in a large quantity of the dark fluffy scale material, which 

 evidently comes from the anal tuft, as in the case of I'ortJu'Kia. In 

 fact, the whole habit and mode of egg-laying suggest as close an 

 alliance with the latter genus as do the habits of the imagines with 

 Or (J Ilia. 



There is only one more fact to add. An intelligent French work- 

 man, who saw me depositing the females in my hat, ventured the 

 observation that the caterpillars stripped the trees early in the year, 

 but that the trees did not appear to suffer from their depredations, as the 

 foliage soon grew again, and certainly the foliage showed no signs of 

 the serious onslaughts that must have been committed a few weeks 

 previously by the army of larva; which had resulted in producing the 

 large number of F. (Usjiar that I did see, as well as that probably 

 nuich larger number that I did not see. — J. W. Tutt. 



BoMBYx QUERcus AND B. cALLUN.E. — Capt. Thompsou, in his 

 " Notes on the deviations in the life-histories of Bombi/.r qucrcus and 

 B. callunae," states, ante, p. 127, that "in Yorkshire the type occurs only 

 on the coast." This is an error, as I have specimens of undoubted 

 B. qurrcus, from Beverley, bred by myself from larvae, and it also 

 occurs at York and Rotherham. With regard to the date of appearance 

 for B. callimae, last year I bred some 97 specimens, these emerged 

 from the 5th to the 29th of June. As to the time of emergence, I 



