1866.] 237 



and were full-fed by July 25th, spinning slight webs at the top of the cage where 

 the glass meeting the gauze forms an angle, and they soon afterwards changed to 

 pupa). 



The larvEe agree perfectly with the Rev. H. Harpur-Crewe's description, and 

 the distinctive marks wherein they differ from those of mancuniata, as pointed out by 

 Mr. Buckler at page 189 of this magazine, are very conspicuous ; for the lateral expan- 

 sion increases from the head to the 9th segment, where it terminates abruptly, thia 

 latter segment being marked at its outer parts on either side very distinctly with 

 the pale patch alluded to by Messrs. Buckler and Crewe, giving a peculiarly striking 

 character. 



The moths emerged in the second week of August, and though of small size, 

 the ordinary characteristics of sxclsericeata (as contrasted with mancuniata) were 

 particularly strongly marked. 



Of the three exceptions alluded to above, one larva made its escape early in 

 the autumn, and another was knocked off its food and perished, but the third is 

 still alive and apparently healthy. — Geo. Gibson, 55, Chalk Farm Koad, 10th 

 February, 1866. 



Notes on Sterrha sacraria, — By the kind permission of Mr. H. Doubleday, I am 

 able to communicate some particulars respecting this species, recorded by M. Milliere 

 in his carefully written and illustrated " Chenilles et Lepidopteres inedits." M. 

 Milliere says that in 1859 he took a ? moth as late as December 12th ; from which 

 he obtained four eggs ; these, he says, are deposited singly on the stems of the food 

 plant, but he figures them all in a little cluster ; he notices their singularly elongated 

 outUne, and describes them as coral red, very finely dotted with Vermillion (the fine 

 network and puncturing of the shell would no doubt show so), but he appears to have 

 missed their first stage of colour, which I gave as pale greenish-yellow, on the 

 authority of Mr. M'Lachlan, for this change must take place very soon after the eggs 

 are deposited. 



M. Milli^re's larvae were hatched on January 5th, and he fed them on various 

 species of Compositco and Sutnex, and on an Anihemis, which flowers in Provence 

 during winter ; he does not say which food seemed most acceptable, but believes the 

 larva to be polyphagous. By the end of February, 1860, his little brood had changed 

 skin three times ; but, after that, whether from want of proper food or from the effects 

 of the weather at that season of the year — he can't say which, — they died off one after 

 another at their last moult. 



And he gives it as his opinion that in the hot countries, where sacraria is truly 

 indigenous, there would be a succession of broods from May to October. To his 

 account of sacraria Mr. Milliere appends a little foot note, which, I confess, makes me 

 own him as a true lover of larva-rearing. He says that an excellent method of obtain- 

 ing eggs from a moth is not to pin it, but to shut it up in a little box of wood or card. 

 With such treatment it is seldom the insect fails to lay its eggs ; which very often it 

 will not do when wounded with the pin. Oh that the captor of sacraria at Worthing 

 had read this ! I have lost my pincushion these five or six years, and can show as 

 good specimens as can be desired, — J, Hbliins, 12th February, 1866. 



Pygwra bucephala in the second week of October. — As my friend Mr. Bond and I 

 were trudging up the lane to Mountsfield, at about 6.30 on the evening of the 11th 

 of October, I spied upon one of the rails of a gas lamp a moth, which we at once 



