276 I May. 



The rearing of Arctia caja in coloured light. — A batch of eggs of the common 

 tiger-moth was divided into three equal portions, and placed, under precisely similar 

 conditions, in three separate larva-cages covered with glass, of which the colour was 

 red, blue, and violet, respectively. Those under the violet-colour were soonest 

 hatched ; the voracity of the larvse was enormous, the quantity of the food eaten by 

 them being quite double that consumed by the others, and their gi'owth was some- 

 what quicker. There was very little variation among the moths developed, and it 

 was apparent in the greater or less marginal extension of the white markings of the 

 fore-wings, which was in nowise referable to the difference in the light ; but all the 

 pupae under the violet glass were developed fourteen days before those under the red 

 and blue covers. — Gr. ScHOCH (in the Mittheilungen der schw. entom. Gesellschaft, 

 V, 540 [1879]). 



[The accelerated germination of seeds and develojDment of roots in cuttings of 

 plants under blue glass has long been known, and is attributed to the favouring in- 

 fluence of the actinic rays of solar light, M'hen the calorific and luminous rays are 

 excluded by a blue medium. It is interesting to find that an analogous acceleration, 

 presumably by the action of the same principle, is also caused in insects, under like 

 conditions. — J. W. D.] 



Description of the larva of Cidaria fulvata. — I did not know the larva of this 

 common species until June 16th, 1877, when, on the occasion of an excursion of the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union to Sharlston, near Wakefield, I beat one out of rose. 

 Since then I have found it easily enough. 



Length, about five-sixths of an inch, and of average bulk in proportion ; head 

 rather narrower than the second segment, it has the lobes rounded, and when at rest 

 appears to be notched on the crown, the notch, however, is really on the second 

 segment, being formed by an extension of the skin into two prominences above the top 

 of the head, and thus forming the notch. Body of nearly uniform width, rounded above 

 and below, but the two portions divided by a wrinkled lateral ridge ; the skin has 

 also a wrinkled appearance, and the segments are very distinctly divided. 



Head, and the ground colour of the body, uniformly bright pale green ; dorsal 

 stripe composed of a double grey line ; sub-dorsal lines of the same colour, but more 

 boldly defined ; a yellow margin extends along the lateral ridge forming the 

 spiracular line ; and the segmental divisions are also yellow. Ventral surface, legs 

 and pro-legs, bright pale green, the jjostcrior segments yellower, and all the segmental 

 divisions yeLow. 



On the 25th of the same month the larva changed to a pupa amongst the leaves 

 of its sprig of rose ; this was about three-eighths of an inch long, the colour almost 

 uniformly a dull green. From it an imago emerged on the 13th of the following 

 month. —Geo. T. Pokeitt, Highroyd House, Huddersfield : Aj^ril 2nd, 18S0. 



Papilio Hector, L., roosting in flocks. — My brother, R. S. Eaton, C.E., informs 

 me that, in the Bombay Presidency, during the latter part of the " rains " (Sept. — 

 Dec.) in the beginning of the cold weather, this butterfly commonly roosts in flocks. 

 About sunset they betake themselves to trees — usually the "Babul" (a species of 

 gum acacia) — clinging to the under-side of the subpendulous branches towards their 

 extremities in crowds of many hundreds ; and there they rest until the sun is well 

 up. — A. E. EAio>, 51, Park Road, Bromley, Kent : Ibth April, 1880. 



