Contributions to Experimental Entomology 567 



of about +7° C, produce any change. Only when the unusually 

 warm fifth of January arrived, which had an average temperature 

 of about 17° C, did the moth, of its own accord, move its anten- 

 nae, legs and wings and wander about languidly in its cage in the 

 manner so often observed in the females of the allied Saturniids. 

 On the evening of the fifth of January, I placed the insect in a 

 moderately heated room in order that it might not be subjected 

 to a sudden change of temperature that has been predicted by 

 the Weather Bureau. On the following morning, however, it 

 was dead. Contrary to my expectations, this female selene did 

 not lay a single unfertilized egg during her whole life period. An 

 examination of the very much swollen and unchanged abdomen, 

 showed, however, that the ovaries were perfectly normal. 



On the third of January, 1909, which was a mild day, there 

 escaped from the Actias selene pupae that had been left out-of- 

 doors another specimen, which proved to be a male. This speci- 

 men was left till the fifth of January, inclusive, in a cage of its 

 own out-of-doors, and was then treated from the sixth of January 

 to the fourth of February inclusive, in the same manner as the 

 former specimen. On the fifth of February, which had an average 

 temperature of + 6° C, I took the moth out of doors again, where it 

 remained till the afternoon of the seventh of February, when it 

 died. The temperature of the sixth of February averaged about 

 4- 13° C, while the average for the seventh of February was about 

 + 4° C. With the single exception that in this second experiment 

 the insect reacted more readily and in a more pronounced manner 

 to the rise in temperature — the males of the allied Saturniids are 

 always very lively — and even made attempts to fly about its cage 

 on the warmest day (the sixth of February) the conditions coincided 

 with those of the individual on which I first experimented. 



Summarizing the results from the time of hatching of both moths 

 we have the following table: 



