1880. j 57 



The virgin beetle lays eggs, as far as I know, in the same numbers, 

 and with the same frequency, as the impregnated $ , but these eggs 

 are almost uniformly barren. One instance I have met with of a 

 single egg, among several hundreds laid by a ? which I bred myself, 

 and kept isolated from her exclusion, going through all the stages of 

 development within the shell, till the time for hatching arrived, when 

 it perished. I have given the particulars in " Nature," vol. xx, p. 430.* 



Milford, Letterkenny, Ireland : 

 25tk May, 1880. 



ANARTA MELANOPA AT HOME. 

 BY MRS. J. ERASER. 



This pretty little moth abounds on the tops of many of the 

 Scottish mountains. In Perthshire I have found it on every Ben 

 which I have ascended to the height of two thousand feet and upwards, 

 during May and early June. It is not among the lovely mountain 

 ! wild flowers nor yet on the heather that it is found, but when the 

 altitude is reached where the heather grows thin and sparse and the 

 grey lichen takes its place as a covering to the surface, there Anarta 

 melanopa may be seen flying rapidly in the sunshine, or even on sun- 

 less days if the air be mild. On at least two mountain tops where 

 melanopa exists in large numbers, the rocks are of a peculiar grey 

 colour, which matches perfectly with the upper wing of the insect, and 

 in those two localities I observed that it almost invariably alighted 

 on the rock and was then all but invisible. Very rarely did it rest on 

 the lichen, and although the resemblance in colour of the moth to the 

 grey lichen was very great, it was not so perfect as the resemblance 

 between the moth and the rocks, the latter thus affording a more 

 perfect concealment while at rest. In other localities where the rocks 

 are of a colour unlike the upper wing of melanopa, it invariably, as 

 far as I could see, settled on the lichen-covered ground, and I did not 

 see a single specimen alight on either rock or stone. 



I have never in any locality observed melanopa lower down than 

 where the lichen begins to take the place of other plants, and on a 

 mountain side in May or early June with a hot sun and a cool fresh 

 wind blowing over snowy peaks, it is a gladsome sight to see this 

 pretty moth, which, with the ptarmigan, the dotterel, and the mountain 

 hare, are almost the only living things to be seen. 



18, Moray Terrace, Edinburgh : 

 28th June, 1880. 



* The results of observations in which I am still engaged enable me amply to confirm this 

 statement, and to prove that parthenogenesis in this species up to the hatching out of the larva? 

 does occasionally occur. — J. A. O. 



