184 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Life-history of Evdromis versicolor. 

 By George Gascoyne, Esq. 



If some of your observing contributors, though not neces- 

 sarily scientific, each undertook to write the life-history of 

 even one species, and especially of some of our more familiar 

 insects, records not unworthy your pages might be produced, 

 and yet be of sufficient general interest to secure the atten- 

 tion of both scientific and non-scientific readers. 



I will endeavour to give one such history, taking the beau- 

 tiful and now not uncommon moth called by school-boys the 

 Kentish Glory, by the student Endromis versicolor. Per- 

 haps such history ought properly to commence with the first 

 stage of existence, namely, the egg ; but it will be more con- 

 venient to make its acquaintance while in the pupa state. 

 We shall then find it in a rather tough, almost transparent 

 cocoon, among moss, dead leaves, or other debris, to which 

 the cocoon is generally attached. The moss in the breeding- 

 cage before us contains some forty or fifty cocoons. Let us 

 suppose we have reached the end of March : the cage is 

 sheltered from the cold winter, but has the benefit of the 

 sun's rays, which are I'ecognized by the pupae, who soon 

 commence working, head foremost, out of the cocoons, 

 coming up vertically through the moss, and remain exposed 

 i'or a week or ten days, more or less, as the weather may be 

 warm or otherwise, until the imago comes forth. The males 

 are the first to show themselves, both as pupse and imagos ; 

 the former, in what we may suppose to be delight at 

 their approaching emancipation, will frequently leave the 

 cocoon, and wriggle along the surface of the moss to some 

 distance. April having arrived, the moss in the cage has 

 become studded with those brown heads, looking very like 

 the ends of cigars. A few warm, sunny days bring out a 

 quantity of the males, and the females soon follow, always 

 emerging before or about noon. The females of E. versicolor 

 (at least in captivity) "call" at intervals, both during the 

 day and evening : at times they will cease simultaneously, 

 and the restless, impetuous males then immediately settle 

 down, as though some mysterious influence had passed over 

 them : on the "calling" being renewed, the males wake up, 

 and resume their impetuous career until union is effected ; and 



