1906.] 226 



the rather unusual luck of netting two at a stroke, a male and a 

 female, both damaged ; whilst the other caught a fine and fresh 

 female by jumping up into the air and sweeping it off an oak. We 

 bottled this last and kept the damaged female for eggs. 



Lodgings are not favourable places for the progress of entomo- 

 logy, but we did what we could for our A. iris by putting it in a net 

 cage, giving it sallow, and feeding it on offal, which it sipped at 

 intervals. By this time our visit was drawing to an end, and when 

 we left Brockenhurst the butterfly had not laid one egg. The journey 

 home w^as the last straw, for on opening the box on our arrival at 

 Forest Hill, we found, to our deep regret, that the insect was dead. 



This was quite a calamity, as we were not familiar with A. iris, and 

 were looking forward to a full acquaintance with the beautiful larva 

 and still more beautiful pupa. About a day and a half later it 

 suddenly occurred to us — as it has before with other species — to 

 attempt a sort of Caesarean operation on the dead butterfly. We slit 

 the abdomen from underneath, laid bare the ovipositor, took out 

 the eggs and fixed them on paper. While doing this we noticed one 

 egg close to the ovipositor : this we succeeded in pressing through ; 

 the egg was thus laid mechanically by the dead insect, and adhered 

 at once on contact with paper. 



After this we looked at odd intervals into the box containing the 

 eggs until July 80th, when we were surprised to find that the egg 

 pressed through the ovipositor had hatched. The larva was bright 

 green in hue, with the markings of succeeding stages down the body, 

 and with a large, rounded, nut-brown head It was removed to a 

 glass-topped uietal box, and supplied with sallow until August 6th, 

 when it moulted, appearing for the first time with the characteristic 

 horns. 



Entomologists accustomed to rear A. iris may think we took un- 

 necessary care in keeping our solitary one ; but as it was the first 

 larva of the species we had ever had, and as its strange birth might 

 have weakened its constitution, we thought we could not do better than 

 treat it well. Our idea was to give it natural conditions, with the 

 dangers of those natural conditions minimised to the utmost extent. 



Towards the end of August we filled a garden pot with earth, 

 drove a bottle of water into it and placed sallow in the bottle, coverint^ 

 the whole with black silk chiffon, such as ladies use for veils. This 

 material acted as an excellent filter for the London air, and at the 

 same time did not obstruct light. Having introduced the larva to 

 this new home, we placed the pot on a northerly window sill, removing 



