MR. STAINTON ON ORGYIA. 159 
it has completed its task, it drops out of the case, an empty 
shrivelled skin. 
Intermediate, perhaps, between Fwmea and Psyche comes the 
singular Psyche? Helix, noticed by Von Siebold. This, again, is 
a sexless nurse, of which the male is hitherto unknown. The 
larve are common in many parts of Germany, but never produce 
anything but vermiform females, which deposit eggs which are 
always fertile. 
Psycure. The females are vermiform, with the legs extremely 
small and rudimentary, hardly perceptible antennz, the parts of 
the mouth very ill developed, and imperfect eyes. It never quits 
the case, nor comes quite out of the pupa-skin; it only slightly 
protrudes its head from the open end of the case whilst awaiting 
the approaches of the male. Copulation is effected by the male 
thrusting the extremity of its abdomen into the case of the female, 
after which operation the female deposits her eggs in the empty 
pupa-skin, imbedding them in layers of wool, and filling the 
pupa-skin so tightly that, except for the opening at the anterior 
end, it might pass for an undeveloped pupa. 
Such pupa-skins may occasionally have been collected by mistake 
for pupz, and the subsequent exclusion of young larve would tend 
to spread the idea that the female bred from the pupa collected had, 
without impregnation, laid fertile eggs. Von Siebold, when first 
he turned his attention to the subject, received numerous notices 
from different quarters of females of the genus Psyche producing 
young without previous copulation; but in none of the known 
species (excepting the anomalous Psyche? Helix) has this been 
confirmed, 
Orxericus. This genus was established by Lansdown Guilding 
in the 15th volume of the ‘ Transactions’ of this Society (p. 373), 
and has since been the subject of a paper by Professor Westwood 
in the ‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society ’ (1854, p. 219). The 
female is vermiform, with legs, antenne, and eyes very ill developed : 
in some species the legs are so rudimentary as to be little more than 
perceptible, whereas in Oiketicus Saundersii the legs, though very 
short and little serviceable, are distinctly articulated. 
The female never quits the case: copulation is effected by the 
‘ male inserting the extremity of the abdomen into the interior of 
the case of the female. “ After impregnation,’’ observes Lansdown 
Guilding, “the female begins to fill the bottom of its puparium with 
her ova, closely packed in the down rubbed from her body, and then, 
