1878.] 103 



ground, in which situation tliey remained nearly two months, until threatened with 

 severe frost, and then I brought them indoors, and placed them in the window of a 

 cool room, where they remained undisturbed up to the 9th of April, 1873, on which 

 day I cut open the bag and found all the larvffi alive and well, one or two having 

 just began to stir from their hiberiiacula. By the beginning of May most of them 

 had moulted, and from henceforward fresh suppUes of decaying oak leaves from time 

 to time were fully appreciated, great quantities being devoured, and the larvae at the 

 beginning of June were half an inch long. On the 20th of the month, Mr. Harwood 

 kindly gave me a further share of his stock, which were in advance of mine, and 

 from the 4th of July they began to pupate ; this change was effected either in cor- 

 ners, or between two leaves held together with a few short, stout, silken threads, a 

 slight lining of silk round the interior holding the pupa steady by its tail. The moths 

 appeared between July 15th and August 31st. 



The egg is globular, with the shell smooth, but slightly reticidated all over in 

 elongated hexagons, its colour whitish, but mottled with pale purplish-brown in 

 nearly equal proportions. Just before hatching, the colour becomes altogether 

 purplish. 



The full-grown lai'va is nearly three-quarters of an inch in length, thick and fat 

 in proportion, cylindrical, tolerably uniform in bulk, though the two or three hinder 

 segments appear the stoutest, particularly when it is crawling ; the thirteenth seg- 

 ment is tapered behind, and beneath its extremity the small anal pair of legs come 

 very close together ; the ventral legs are sliort and much beneath the body, the 

 anterior legs are also small, the head is globular like others of the genus ; the seg- 

 ments are well defined ; the skin is soft, smooth, and velvety ; its colour is dark 

 brown, covered with an exceedingly short and fine pubescence resembling the pile of 

 fine silk velvet ; this, where the light catclies, generally on the retiring parts, appears 

 of a pearly whiteness. Vei-y few details are to be seen : just a faint indication of a 

 darker dorsal line, and a still fainter suggestion of a sub-dorsal line ; the usual 

 tubercular dots are black and only just discernible ; the spiracles are of the 

 ground colour ringed with black, and beneath them the ground colour is a paler 

 brown than the back ; the head is velvety like the body, and the narrow plate of 

 rather darker brown across the middle of the second segment is divided dorsally by 

 a thin line of the ground colour. 



The pupa is nearly six lines long, smooth and cyhudrical, moderately stout, the 

 abdomen tapering off evenly, and ending in a spike furnished with two larger, and 

 six smaller spines with curled tops ; its colour is purplish-brown without g]oss, 

 excepting just in the segmental divisions of the abdomen ; the terminal spines are 

 reddish-brown. — W. B. 



Heemini.v. cribralis. 



On July 25tli, 1S72, eggs of tliis sjoeciea were kindly sent nic 

 (J. II.) by Mr. C. Gr. Barrett ; unfortunately, I have missed the 

 recoi'd of the date of hatching, but it must have been some time in 

 August ; early in September I noted that the larvie would eat sallow 

 leaves, and they also ate Carex sylvatica and Luzula pilosa, on grow- 

 ing plants of which I put them out to hibei-nate. They were about 

 half-grown (about half an inch in length) when they ceased feeding 



