1S86.J 141 



It may not have been the robin, it may Iiave been sonic other bird, but, at any rate, 

 I would not trust any longer to the chapter of accidents, so I cut off the oak-twig 

 and brought it and the larvae indoors. Having placed the oak-twig in water on the 

 table, and [having about twenty larva; yet to moult, I thought I should surely in 

 some of them see the actual commencement of the operation — but this expectation 

 was doomed to be disappointed. 



The new pale yellow head, which usually appeared above and behind the old 

 black head, was always visible when I first glanced at a moulting larva, however 

 little the moulting might have otherwise advanced, but the gradual retirement of 

 the old skin towards the tail of the larva seemed to be almost a self-acting motion, 

 to which the larva contributed but little till the time came for extricating its anal 

 extremity from the old skin. The anal plate, like the head, was at first of a pale 

 yellow, but the colour of this plate, as well as of the head, got gradually darker, till 

 eventually both were jet black, yet the black markings all along the intervening 

 segments were black the moment the old skin withdrew from them ; in this, 

 resembling the mandibles which, as already noted, were black on their first appearance. 



The black faces of the moulted larvae were ornamented with a central yellow 

 mark like an inverted Y ; the faces of the unmoulted larvae were entirely black, 

 without any yellow mark. The anterior-legs, which were so pale on their first 

 appearance, also became eventually perfectly black. 



In one instance the yellow head of the moulted larva appeared beneath the old 

 head, but in all the other cases the rupture of the skin must have been on the back 

 immediately behind the old head. The old heads were completely detached from 

 the other parts of the skin, and fell down separately from the oak-twig as the 

 moultings progressed, so that by the prostrate heads on the table I could readily 

 count how many larvte had already moulted. 



By Wednesday morning all but one or two of the batch had moulted, but not 

 one had yet broken its long fast : it was not till Wednesday afternoon that feeding 

 began. On Thursday, all the jaws were vigorously at work, and an oak-leaf was 

 soon reduced to its mid-rib. I then turned the larvae loose on a growing tree. From 

 the very crowded position taken up by gregarious larvae, moulting at times seemed 

 to take place under difficulties, and one of the first larvae that I observed had two 

 other larvae lying straight across its back at the very time that the old skin was being 

 shuffled downwards. 



I thought again and again of my first visit to Naples, where I met a G-erman 

 physician who had long been settled there, who assured us it was not at all unusual 

 for the Neapolitans to sleep eight or ten in a bed. — H. T. Stainton, Mountsfield, 

 Lewisham : September 24th, 1886. 



Asthena luteata. — With reference to Mr. Barrett's note respecting this species 

 (Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. xxiii, p. 109), I may state that in a small well-wooded valley 

 near here it occurs regularly, and we always obtain it by heating alder (Alnus glu- 

 tinosa), and in company with JEupistei-ia heparata. There is no maple (Acer 

 campestre) in the vicinity, and I was always under the impression that it was a 

 well-known fact that alder was the natural food of A. luteata, at least in the north 

 of England.— J. W. Carteb, Valley Street, Bradford : October '7th, 1886. 



