178 THE ektomologist's record. 



of the egg is covered with a network of hexagonal cells, with a glisten- 

 ing white knob or button at each angular point (here and there 

 heptagonal and pentagonal cells exist side by side, where one of the 

 knobs has migrated to an adjacent cell). Each cell is depressed with 

 raised edges, and the ground of the cell is minutely pitted. There is 

 no definite arrangement of the cells into longitudinal and transverse 

 lines, and the buttons of the cells directly surrounding the micropylar 

 area are less prominent, not so large nor so shiny. The hexagonal 

 cells are occasionally very regular, but usually more or less irregular. 

 The micropyle is placed at the bottom of a small depression, situated 

 centrally at the broader end. In the green stage of the egg, it is most 

 difficult to distinguish, but becomes more conspicuous with the darken- 

 ing of the colour. It is exceedingly simple, being formed of a number 

 of rounded cells with a stellate arrangement. [Eggs sent by Mr. 

 Bacot, May 14th, in the green stage, described May i7th in the red 

 stage, under a two-thirds lens.] The close resemblance between the 

 sculpture of this egg and that of Knyrantltia plumistraria is very 

 striking. — T. E. Baty. 



Note on the newly-emerged larva of Polygonia egea. — The 

 newly-emerged larva of P. ct/ca is very like a Noctuid larva (say that 

 of Dasycampa mhu/inea, for example) on emergence from the egg. 

 After the first moult it bears considerable resemblance to the larva of 

 P. machaon in its first skin, so far as regards tubercles and hairs ; but 

 it is far more specialised than the larva of P. machaon, both as regards 

 the arrangement of the tubercles or processes {i.e., embryonic spines), 

 which are not in the usual trapezoidal form, and also in both having a 

 central dorsal row of these processes or spines. — A. Bacot. May, 1897. 



j^CIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Discussion on the attractiveness of light. — The attractiveness 

 of light has often puzzled me, and I cannot see my way to any 

 explanation ; but can imagine that, in some way, it is connected with 

 an insect's sense of colour. Bees, as Sir J. Lubbock has shown, are 

 very sensible of colour, and mostly attracted by blue. Night moths 

 seem to find yellow and white flowers out, as most night-opening and 

 night-scented flowers are one or other of these, e.y., the night- 

 flowering Silenes — mitans, viarithiia, noctifiora, Mi/7rtirt, etc., as against 

 the allied red Lychnis dioica (sometimes placed among the Silenes), 

 Nicotia7ia affinis, which only wakes up of a night, and many 

 others, all of which are specially adapted for fertilisation by nocturnal 

 insects. Once allow the attractiveness of a white flower to a nocturnal 

 insect, and the influence of light becomes explicable, for a light would 

 surely act on that insect in a much stronger manner. — E. A. Bowles, 

 M.A., F.E.S., Waltham Cross. 



Mr. Bowles' explanation of the attractiveness of light is ingenious, 

 but white and yellow flowers may only be attractive at night by 

 being more conspicuous, and moonlight nights ought thus to be the 

 best to capture moths at flowers, which is contrary to experience. 

 Are white and yellow flowers the most attractive ? The red nettles, 

 red clover, rush bloom, red verbena, geraniums, red valerian, and many 

 others, are all very attractive. We must account for the fa^t 

 that insects come far more freely oji dry evenings, and after a, 



