80 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA, 
brightest sunlight. At no other time have I seen the male 
flying by day. 
An unvisited female appears to eagerly await the male, 
seeming uneasy, and continually raising the end of the abdo 
men and extruding the ovipositor. Copulation continues for 
about five hours, and fertilized egg laying commences about 
two hours later. If the male is not allowed access to the 
female, unfertilized egg laying may commence within a few 
hours of emergence, or be postponed for as much as two days. 
If the female has commenced to lay unfertilized eggs prior to 
copulation, eggs laid subsequently to this are still infertile. 
An unfertilized female can live ten days, but no eggs are laid 
after the sixth day until within a few hours of death, when a 
few separate white eggs, not covered with down, and removed 
from the main egg mass, are laid. Fertilized females do not lay 
such last few eggs, and die when oviposition is completed. The 
death of the male has not been observed. 
Control_—The larve are parasitized by a hymenopterous 
fly, probably a chalcid, the grubs of which kill the larvee at 
any stage, emerging from the dead body, pupating close by 
and emerging as imagines 9-10 days later. In common with 
other Lymantrid larve, the larve sometimes die of a kind 
of dysentery, very dark brown in colour, which appears 
to be caused by a diplococcus, which can be found freely 
in the discharge. Light has apparently no attraction for 
the males. 
Status.—At present the insect can hardly be described as a 
pest, save of pot plants, geranium, and begonia, to which it is 
very partial. Its attacks on cacao are very slight, though I 
have no doubt that this is its main food plant in the Matale 
district, and much searching is necessary if larve are to be 
found. It is probably kept in check by the hymenopterous 
parasite. As, however, owing to obscure causes, the control 
over it of the latter may suddenly prove ineffectual, and a 
serious attack occur, the above notes are offered in the hope 
that they may prove of service in the event of such happening. 
Tn conclusion, I have to thank Mr. G. M. Henry, Assistant 
Entomologist at Peradeniya, for confirming my identification 
of the insect. 
