108 THK K.NTOAror.OCUST's liKCOlin. 



W^AR I A TION. 



Variation in males of Pericallia syringaria, second-brood. — A 

 number of eggs laid by a $ Poirallia st/riniiaria, captured in Dorset, duly 

 hatched in July, 1903, and the larvse were fed on privet. Wishing to get 

 a second brood I kept the larvif at a fairly high temperature, but only 

 five fed up, the remainder (a hundred or more) evidently havmg deter- 

 mined to hybernate. The five grew rapidly, soon turned to pupse, 

 from which two J s and three 2 s emerged on September 23rd and 

 the following days. It struck me that both the full-fed larvte and pupje 

 were rather smaller than some I had previously reared in the first brood, 

 but the moths emerged much about the usual size. What I particu- 

 larly want to note, however, is that the <? s, instead of having the 

 normal orange colouring of the first brood, follow the colouring of the 

 J s. Larvie, resulting from a pairing of examples of this partial 

 second brood, fed up to the hybernation stage, and are now almost the 

 same size as their uncles and aunts. — G. 0. Day, F.E.S., Knutsford. 

 JoHKarii ith, 1S04. 



:i^OTES ON LIFE-HISTORIES, LARY^ffil, &c. 



Hyhernation of Acidalia remutata. — Dr. Buckell asks (A'»^ Ilcaird, 

 XV., p. 22) whether this species hybernates in the larval stage. I can 

 vouch for its doing so, as I reared it from the egg in 1897-8. Larvie 

 resulting from eggs laid in June. 1897, hybernated when quite small, 

 woke again in April, and, pupating in May, produced imagines in the 

 first week of June, 1898. T believe all 1 British Acidalias hybernate in 

 the larval state. The only possible exception is Acidalia /iinn/iraria, the 

 larvio of which, according to Barrett, feed on grasses (especially 

 Festiira) from July to September.''- But I doubt whether this species 

 has ever been reared in England, and its conduct on the European 

 continent is no criterion of what it may (or might) do in our rigorous 

 climate. I have found that most Acidaliid larvae on awakening in 

 spring, take very kindly to hawthorn leaves when just expanded, 

 particularly relishing the tender foliage of the youngest shoots. — (Rev.) 

 G. H. Raynok, M.A., Hazeleigh Rectory, Maldon. Janiiari/ 21t/i, 1904. 



EuG OF Polyommatus eschehi. — i"Two of the three ova received have 

 partially collapsed ; the third appears to be quite perfect.j The egg 

 is tiat and disc-shaped (about the proportion of a Dutch cream cheese), 

 pure white, and most beautifully sculptured with raised knobs at the 

 intersections of the ribs, slightly over -Gmm. in diameter, height 

 about •2mm. ; the base is nearly flat, and covered by a cell pattern, 

 but this is somewhat obscured by the cement ; the sides are bulged, the 

 top nearly flat, but sloping in slightly to the centre, where there is a 

 small pit or crater, the bottom of which is covered with a much finer 

 and more delicate cell-pattern than any other portion of the egg. In 

 the centre of this micropylar crater-like depression one can just make 



* [The right of Acidalia pcrochraria to be consideied British is surely very 

 questionable. In the neishljourhood of Aix-les-Hains, where the species swarms, 

 the imagines are on the wing in Augnst, eggs are laid then and hatch (if we remem- 

 ber rightly) witliin a few (hiys. the laiviu most probably hybernating. The egg is 

 described under the name of .1. ncJivata (corrected in -'Index"! in the Kut . 

 llcconl, ix., p. "itt'i, and as we have given eggs to friends two or three times perhaps 

 someone has a note of the life-history of the species. — Ev. 



