]52 . ' [Ducembcr, 



then the apparent liking of the larvae for water, as he had watched 

 them closely, and seen instances of their approaching water and 

 drinking it, and one larva actually crawling in a tiny pool, as though 

 enjoying its miniature bath in the hot sunshine ; this of course led to 

 the experiment of my sprinkling an occasional drop or two of water 

 over the food of four of mj^ larvae for a few days, but only with 

 disastrous result, as the four water drinkers died from an efflorescence 

 of mould on their coats ; the remaining three lived some days longer 

 and fed but sparingly, chiefly on leguminous plants, until each in turn 

 died, the last on the 15th of July. 



On 17th of July I bred the moth from one of the three cocoons, 

 one only, a poor specimen and slightly crippled, yet not enough to 

 interfere with its identification, and I hailed its a])pearance with 

 great satisfaction. 



Here I think I may be allowed to mention, that with Mr. Baker 

 several of his larvae of exulans spun their cocoons, but died within 

 them unchanged ; while from a few that succeeded in effecting their 

 change to pupje he only obtained three moths, and all dwarfed, in 

 fact, one of them was scarcely more than half the size of a fine Swiss 

 specimen. 



Possibly such poor I'esults, with larvae having the reputation of 

 being polyphagous, may yet have been from the want of their 

 accustomed alpine plants, or else must be attributed to the great 

 difference of our climate from that of their habitat in Switzerland at 

 so great an altitude, and though this is not more than half as great in 

 Scotland, it should be borne in mind that Braemar is a little more 

 than eleven degrees of latitude farther north, and the habitat of 

 exulans, as Dr. Buchanan "White has said,* "is probably covered with 

 snow from November to April each season." 



The egg of extdans is of large size for that of the insect, and of 

 long cylindrical round-ended shape, having a depression bending 

 inward rather irregularly on one side, the shell is very thin and very 

 slightly reticulated all over, in colour ochreous-yellow, changing to 

 orange-ochreous, and finally to dark greenish-slate colour, very shining 

 from the first to last. 



When first hatched, the larva is a plump sausage-shaped little 

 creature of yellowish olive-green colour most minutely dotted with 

 black, having a row of sub-dorsal dull orange blotches, a black shining 

 head, the usual warts black, each with a longish rough but pointed 

 black bristle, the skin rather pubescent. 



* The Eutomologisfs Annual for MDCCCLXXII, p. 113. 



