60 • [March, 



FURTHER NOTES 

 ON THE HABITS OF PSYCHE VILLOSELLA, OCHS. 



BY C. G. BATIEETT, F.E S. 



The perusal of some recent notes of mine upon this species (Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 n. 8., vol. V, pp. 217-18) has induced Mr. McRae, of Bournemouth, to favour me with 

 some further particulars of his own observations, of great interest ; and also to allow 

 me the opportunity of reading and quoting from two letters received by him from 

 our lamented friend, Mr. J. Jenner Weir, which greatly tend to complete our know- 

 ledge of the history of the species. 



Mr. McRae says, " I took my first specimen of the male flying in the bright 

 sunshine at about three in the afternoon, in the month of July, twenty years ago. 

 During all the years since then I have only on two occasions witnessed its flight, and 

 each time in bright sunshine in the early afternoon. The flight is very rapid, and 

 much resembles that of Anarta myrtilli. In captivity I have always found the 

 males to emerge at about six p.m., or very rarely at any other time. In less than 

 half an hour after freeing the pupal envelope from the case the wings are fully 

 developed and fit for flight, and if not watched, the males soon damage themselves 

 by their liveliness and eager endeavour to find the female. My lamented friend, 

 the late Mr. Jenner Weir, whom I introduced to my colony of villosella, appears to 

 have observed what I should have regarded as a physical impossibility regarding 

 the copulation of this species, and altogether incredible but for my faith in his sound 

 judgment and keen observation. I am sorry to say that my own chances of further 

 observation on the habits of this species are very uncertain, owing to the wholesale 

 destruction of the locality by fire, in its conversion into golf links." 



Mr. Weir, writing to Mr. McRae, says, " I am vcr'^ much obliged to you for the 

 females, with families, of Psyche villosella, which you regard as a case of true par- 

 thenogenesis ; this may be so, but I have lately had my views on the subject rather 

 shaken. You recollect that I took a large number of the cases when last I had the 

 pleasure of visiting you, and I also preserved through the winter some thirty or 

 forty of tlie larvae, which spun up while I was at your house. Now I find that, as 

 a rule, the female did not leave the case, and further, I noticed that no male paid 

 any attention to those females which I had helped out of the cases ; but when a 

 male emerged he at once sought a female which had not left the case and thrust his 

 abdomen into the case, this part of his body becoming very much extended." 



" What I find is this — that the male, always, when emerging, leaves the pupa- 

 skin nearly two-thirds projecting from the larval case ; the female, on the contrary, 

 leaves the unbroken abdominal portion of the pupa-skin at the bottom of the case ; 

 she partly emerges and clears the emergent end, thus enabling the male to obtain 

 access to the case ; he inserts his extensile body as far into the case as the wings 

 will permit, so that I have seen the wings become horizontal. Afterwards the 

 female retreats to tlie bottom or proximal end of the case and deposits her eggs in a 

 mass, apparently in the old skin." 



"Upon opening the cases that I had by mo I found tliat many larvae had been 

 attacked by an Ichneumon, even those I had kept by me for a whole year. I was 

 much struck with this, because the larvse must have been the hosts of the pai-asites 

 all the winter." " I do not say that true i)artl;enogenesis does not take place some- 



