336 THB ENTOMOLOGIST. 



is a large, dull, heavy creature, flying only occasionally, and 

 always in the night, and greatly addicted to intoxicating 

 sweets : she is furnished with a moderately long ovipositor, 

 so slender and flexible that it can be introduced into the 

 smallest crack of the bark. In order to make myself 

 thoroughly master of her mode of proceeding, 1 fastened a 

 full-bodied female to a strip of willow-bark, and carefully 

 observed what took place. Apparently quite indifferent to 

 her most uncomfortably confined position, her ovipositor was 

 at once extruded, and its extremity moved about in every 

 direction. This curious instrument, from its excessive power 

 of flexion, reminded me of the tongue of a giraffe, but 1 fear 

 many of my readers may not have studied that extraordinary 

 organ, and so will fail to appreciate the simile. However, I 

 may describe the ovipositor of the goat-moth as a flexible 

 instrument capable of great extension ; the extremity is 

 pointed, and seems ever on the alert to examine the surface 

 of the bark until it finds a crevice to its satisfiiction : the 

 ovipositor by no means accepts the first crevice it enters, 

 but continues its examination for many seconds : when fully 

 satisfied that it has discovered a safe place, an egg is de- 

 posited at the very bottom of the crevice, and the instru- 

 ment is withdrawn. Another crevice is then sought for and 

 found, and another egg deposited. There is something very 

 extraordinary in the manner in which the worm-like ovi- 

 positor prosecutes its search for a suitable nidus for the 

 egg, the stolifl moth seeming quite indiflferent to the pro- 

 ceedings of this organ, so essential to the continuation of 

 its kind ; and while the protruded instrument is twisting 

 itself in every possible direction, the body of the moth 

 remains motionless, as though it were far too diguified to 

 take any notice of the proceedings of its caudal appendage 

 'J'he deposition of single eggs 1 have found the usual, but not 

 the universal, practice ; sometimes three or four eggs are 

 deposited together in a cluster, and iu one instance as many 

 as thirty-nine eggs have been found piled together without 

 any appearance of regularity : the eggs are about the size of 

 rape-seed and very nearly round, but slightly elongated at 

 the crown ; the surface is striated both longitudinally and 

 transversely ; the colour is dull pale brown, the interstices of 

 the longitudinal striae being of a darker colour, and therefore 



