150 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



and meeting over the back; these were closed down at 12*30, 

 so that two hours elapsed between the moistening of the co- 

 coon and the insect attaining perfection, but the wings were 

 not wholly hardened at this time. — J. Pristo. 



[It has often occurred to me as a curious subject of in- 

 quiry how the intensely hard cocoon of the puss moth be- 

 comes sufficiently softened to admit the passage of the 

 imago : what is the fluid employed ? where is it elaborated ? 

 and how does it escape ? As far as my observation has ex- 

 tended, there is no external opening of an oesophagus in the 

 puss moth, nor in many other Bombyces and Pseudo-Bom- 

 byces. — Edward Newmait.] 



87. Coleophora Artemisicolella, Bruand. — In September, 

 18G3, in procuring larvae of Eupithecia succenturiata on Arte- 

 misia vulgaris, I met with a few cases of the above ; in Novem- 

 ber they left their food, and fixed their cases to the sides of 

 the glass where the muslin covers the top, and remained so 

 till the end of the past July, when to my surprise several of 

 the cases were moving about : on supplying them with fresh 

 food, on the top of the old dried seed, they commenced feed- 

 ing. From the fixed cases I had some two dozen moths in 

 July and August; the remainder of the cases have taken up 

 their " long vacation," and I presume will appear in the 

 moth state next August ; so two years is the time to produce 

 this small moth. — R. S. Edleston ; Boivdon, near Man- 

 chester, December 9, 1864. 



88. Amphydasis betularia. — Some sixteen years ago the 

 "negro" aberration of this common species was almost un- 

 known ; more recently it has been had by several parties. 

 Last year 1 obtained the eggs of a female of the common 

 form, which had been ^^^ cop. with a "negro" male : the larvae 

 1 fed on willow, and had this year some remarkably pretty 

 aberrations, the connecting-link between the " negro" and the 

 usual form, but far before either as regards beauty : I placed 

 some of the virgin females in n)y garden, in order to attract 

 the males, and was not a little surprised to find that most of 

 the visitors were the "negro" aberration : if this goes on for 

 a kvf years the original type of A. betularia will be extinct 

 in this locality. — Id. 



89. Coleophora orhilella. — I captured a male and female 

 of this variety by beating a small birch on Carrington Moss, 



