PRACTICAL HINTS. 325 



will often attack them. When this pest appears in an old cage the 

 cage should be burnt at once. — C. Fenn, F.E.S., Lee. 



As to keeping dug pupe during the winter, I have found the 

 following method most successful : —Knock the bottom out of a box 

 some seven or eight inches deep, and replace with coarsely perforated 

 zinc, or, better still, with wire gauze Level the edges at the top, and 

 cut a piece of glass to fit accurately. Place, on the zinc or gauze, inside 

 the box, a layer of Sphagnum moss, pressed down till it is at least one 

 inch thick. On this, place a thin layer of cocoa-nut fibre, and on it 

 the pupje, and cover them with about half an inch of the fibre. 

 Between it and the glass lid place some sticks crosswise, from which 

 the insects can suspend themselves when drying their wings. The 

 box itself should be kept in position over a fiat pan of water. The 

 Spltanuuiii should be first plunged in boiling water, then dried, and 

 very shghtly damped before using. -W. S. Riding, M.D., F.E.S., 

 Buckerell, Devon. 



I leave all my pup^e (except those of Exipitheciae and other small 

 Geometrids) in the pots in which they have pupated, covering the sur- 

 face with a thin layer of moss. These pots I place outside in a 

 covered shed, open to and facing the north, covering each pot with a 

 sheet of glass. I leave the pots in this shed from the middle of 

 October to the end of February or early in March, then take them 

 inside the house, and occasionally damp the moss with tepid water. 

 Kupithcciac, and other small fry, I place on dry sand in tins, covering 

 them lightly with a layer of sand, and leave them in the shed all the 

 winter, taking them indoors in March, and still leaving them in the 

 tins, and not watering or damping at all. The very few butterfly 

 pupiB I have are left in the ordinary breeding-cages, and kept indoors, 

 but not too warm. — T. Maddisox, South Bailey, Durham. 



My method of keeping pupfe has been as follows : — I have a box 

 (or, rather, several boxes) of wood, 18in. long by 12in. wide and 15in. 

 deep, with hinged cover of glass, sloped from back to front. In the 

 back and front a piece of wire gauze, 15in. by 5in., is fixed for venti- 

 lation. The bottom is of similar material (wire gauze). The box 

 stands over a zinc tray of water the size of the box. Li the bottom 

 of the box I place a layer of moss, about 2in. to Sin. deep, and on this 

 I lay the pup^e and cocoons. I keep the boxes in my study, where 

 there is always a fire. The water under seems to give sufficient damp. 

 I found, however, that pupse got down through the moss to the 

 zinc bottom, and I am now placing over the moss a thin layer of 

 cocoa fibre, placing the pupje on this, and over them putting a very 

 thin layer of the fibre. Of course, I cannot say how this will answer. 

 I tried keeping out of doors, but found it quite impossible to exclude 

 earwigs. — E. F. C. Studd, M.A., B.C.L., F.E.S., Oxton, Devon. 



Last winter I did not dig up my pupse at all, but allowed the 

 moths to emerge where the larvae had gone down. I am inclined to 

 think that I shall keep to this plan. So many pupa? that are dug up 

 and interfered with, die, and I fancy that this is often because of their 

 having been removed from their cocoons and natural site. The objec- 

 tion to leaving them alone is that the pupse may be devoured, without 

 one's knowledge, by the larvie of Tineids, and different kinds of vermin. 

 Last winter I had a number of flower-pots containing pupse (perhaps 

 20 or 30). Only the pup;e in one of these pots suffered from the 



