274 ' • [May, 



(? second), wlien the length is about 6 mm., the head and collar still black, the general 

 colour paler brown than before, with paler indistinct dorsal and sub-dorsal lines, the 

 dots small and black ; the larva still living inside oak-buds : afterwards the ground- 

 colour becomes darker brown, the head still black, the dorsal and sub-dorsal lines 

 narrow, and yellow in colour, the spiracular line broader, and of paler yellow, the 

 dots black, the spiracles ringed with black : in May, when the oak-buds are now 

 opening, the larva makes a cave for itself by spinning together the small leaves with 

 a good deal of silk, the length now 16 mm., the head dull brown, contrasting with 

 the greenish second segment, and the collar edged in front with yellow, the general 

 colour of the body ochreous, showing warmer at the folds, mottled with dull greenish, 

 the dorsal line primrose, tlie sub-dorsal and spiracular threads both yellow; spiracles 

 green, ringed with black, the dots still black. With the last moult the larva becomes 

 all over green, freckled with yellow, the dorsal line of primrose remains distinct, the 

 sub-dorsal thread is gone, the dots also not to be seen, though the place of each is 

 marked by a very small fine hair : the larva now feeds openly, and ceases to make 

 any shelter for itself by drawing together the oak-leaves. 



Diloha cceruleocephala. — The egg laid in autumn, large for size of the moth, of 

 depressed Noctua form, about '85 mm. transversely, and '5 mm. vertically, the whole 

 shell rugose, with fifteen or sixteen coarse ribs, in centre of top a small circular space 

 thimble-pitted ; the shell sparsely set with some long ('65 mm.), curled and tangled 

 flat hairs, broad (more than 0'5 mm.) at their bases and tapering upwards ; in colour 

 the upper part of the shell dark bronzy-brown, the under-part pale leaden-grey, the 

 hairs white. 



The young larva (hatched in beginning of March) not quite 3 mm. in length, 

 the head shining jet-black, the collar large and black, the ground-colour dull greenish, 

 the usual spots prominent, and shining black, each emitting a long, rather waved, 

 black bristle, but also set with a number of tiny short black bristles, as, indeed, is 

 the whole skin, and the number of these bristles makes the little larva look black ; 

 but in three or four days' time, when it has grown, the bristles stand more apart, 

 and the ground colour is less hidden, and there appear on the back and sides large 

 pale yellow spots, so that before its first moult the larva has assumed very much 

 of the appearance which it wears when full-grown, in this showing a very different 

 habit from that of the two species described above. 



Agrotis {TriphcBna) pronuha. — Few years pass without my having the eggs of 

 this species before me, either through a find of my own, or else through some one 

 sending me a batch to name ; the moth, of course, has an extended flight, and it is 

 not at all particular as to the nidus to which it entrusts its eggs ; a tall grass stem 

 in the middle of a meadow, a reed blade by the water, an elm -leaf five feet from the 

 ground, a bay-leaf close to the ground, a dry stick lying on the ground — these are a 

 few of the positions I have known chosen, and they, to some extent, account for the 

 puzzle as to the species to which the eggs should be credited ; but, subject to the 

 variation necessarily caused by the difference of position, the plan of their deposition 

 is always the same ; they are laid in large numbers, amounting to many hundreds 

 (in one instance I counted twelve hundred), evenly in rank and file, very close but 

 flat and never over-lapping one another ; and as they are small in individual bulk, a 

 surface of half-an-inch square will accommodate a great many. 



The egg is of the usual Noctua form, neat and plump in outline, but rather 



