THE REAKIN'd OK PACHKTKA LKUCOl'H.EA. 225 



not invariable, and the moths remain together for several hours, but 

 not, as a rule, for the whole night. 



The rearing of Pachetra leucophaea. 



By .1. C. DOLLMAN, F.E.8. 

 A batch of eggs from Wye received from Mr. Kaye, which were laid 

 on June 11th, 1903, hatched out on June 24th. The young larva^ 

 were j\ in. long on emergence and were very active and restless in 

 habit. The head was large, with dark lunules and a chestnut face. 

 The body grey with two subdorsal dark lines, and the anal segment 

 black. It was thickly set with black hairs, and, between the 2nd and 

 3rd abdominal segments, possessed a band round ihe body of a lighter 

 tint than the main part. A dark plate was suggested on the pro- 

 thoracic segment, and the two subdorsal lines were constructed of 

 black warts, below which was also a lateral line of dark warts, all 

 giving oft' hairy projections. The body was glabrous and shiny, and 

 there was a transverse row of dark spots on the prothoracic segment 

 behind the cervical plate. The legs were darkish and the pro-legs 

 of the body colour, only two pairs of the abdominal series, however, 

 being fully developed, the other two pairs, on abdominal seg- 

 ments 3 and 4, being still in embryo. This formation begot a 

 pseudo-geometric action almost like that of the larvie of the Hypenids. 

 The appearance of the larva at this early stage and its habit of 

 existence were totally at variance Avith those of the next stage and those 

 of its later periods, for while it was now eager, restless, and quick in 

 movement, and was semitransparent in appearance, it developed for 

 the future a dull inert method of life, and was sleek and fat in appear- 

 ance, having a colour of opaque grey or tawny, with dorsal and sub- 

 dorsal lines of a deeper shade of the body tint. This first change took 

 place on July 7th and onwards for a few days, when the larva? seemed 

 to assume their true character and appearance, which cannot be 

 said to have altered materially to the final stage, with the exception 

 that the markings and warts gradually became more declared and 

 emphatic. The appearance of the larva in its second stage was more 

 opaque in colour and the shiny translucency had left it. The head 

 was light glabrous brown or grey with two dark vertical lines on the 

 face. The suggestion of a cervical plate, which was observable in the 

 first skin had merged into the general dorsal ground colour. The larvte 

 might be roughly classified under two headings, in the matter of colour, 

 those that were grey in general eti'ect and those that were tawny in tint, 

 the markuigs in each case remaining the same in design and were 

 but of a darker tint of the ground colour pertaining to the example. 

 The dorsal surface was occupied with a broad stripe of the darker, 

 and down the centre of this was a fine mediodorsal line of the lighter, 

 tint, dividing it into subdorsal stripes. On each side of this thin bright 

 mediodorsal line, which slightly expanded at the junction of the seg- 

 ments on the skinfolds, ran a broken thin line of dark reticulation, 

 suggesting a fine stripe. This fine striping was also observable at the 

 limit edge of the broad subdorsal line itself. Next to this tine outside 

 broken dark stripe was a very fine light line, adjoining which was a 

 space of the light ground colour for about the width of the broad dark 

 dorsal surface measured from the mediodorsal light line. Nearly as wide 



