1881.] 211 



The ground is now of various shades of ochreous-yellow, the darker specimens 

 having a strong rust tinge along the sides ; head of various shades of brown, in some 

 being of a dark sienna colour ; in all there is the pale yellow front triangular mark 

 so noticeable in the earlier stage, and there is also another distinct streak of yellow 

 on the side of each lobe ; a brown stripe enclosing a very fine yellow line, and 

 broadly edged outwardly with yellow, forms the dorsal stripe ; a double smoke- 

 coloured line composes the sub-dorsal stripe, and between it and the dorsal stripe 

 are two other irregular yellow lines ; above the spiracles is a yellow line edged on 

 each side with smoke-colour, and between it and the sub-dorsal stripe another 

 irregular yellow line ; spiracles and tubercular dots black. 



Ventral surface of various shades of dull ochreous, with two greyish central 

 lines ; a black mark on the 7th and 8th segments ; and a smoke-coloured stripe 

 below the spiracles. 



Feeds during the night ; in the day-time remains extended at full length, flat 

 along the stalks of the food-plant. 



The cocoon is composed of bits of the food-plant, firmly knitted together with 

 very closely woven silk ; in a state of nature, however, it would probaby be on the 

 ground. The pupa is about five-eighths of an inch long, and of the ordinary shape, 

 though rather blunt and dumpy ; colour deep purplish-brown, with the abdominal 

 divisions and spiracles still darker; it is powdered over with a very pretty violet 

 bloom, though more so on the head, thorax, and wing-cases, than elsewhere. 



From these larvae I reared a long and beautiful series of imagos the following 

 June. — G-eo. T. Poeeitt, Highroyd House, Huddersfield : January 8th, 1881. 



Mow to find the larva of Triphcena subsequa. — January and early February, if 

 mild in the season, to sweep for the larva? of T. subsequa. It feeds at night but is 

 out on the blades and stems of grass in the afternoons, stretched at full length ; it 

 frequents dry sandy banks, especially where dense beds of Dactylis glomerata appear, 

 I think it is entirely a grass feeder in its natural state, though it will eat other herbage 

 in confinement, at least, I have never found it feeding on anything else but D. 

 glomerata and Triticum repens. — H. Williams, Croxton Vicarage, Thetford : 

 December 28th, 1880. 



[These notes are additional to those published by Mr. Williams in this 

 Magazine, vol. xiii, p. 210. — Eds.] 



Remarks on monogamy, or the contrary, in Insects. — The remarks of Messrs. 

 Douglas and Butler, ante pp. 114, 133, have brought to my mind two circumstances 

 that may be of some little interest. 



When at Norwich some years ago, I had the curiosity one day to examine the 

 little bunches of dead hawthorn leaves, so common in closely clipped quickset hedges 

 in the winter. To my surprise I found almost every bunch held together and 

 fastened down to the twigs by a cocoon of the Yapourer (0. antiqua), and in nearly 

 every case the cocoon was that of a female — evidenced by the batch of eggs spread 

 regularly over it. It then occurred to me as a possible explanation, that the female 

 larva must seek by preference a more sheltered or protected situation than that of 

 the male. This may sometimes cause an apparent inequality in numbers between 

 the sexes in the larva-state, certainly it would help to account for the difficulty of 

 finding the female moth. 



