L156 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
is a popular error, entirely unsupported by facts, and that the 
foolish prejudice which attributes all sorts of accidents to 
consanguinity is unworthy of being taken into consideration by 
science, but, as he quotes from Lebrun :— 
“On ne detruit pas aisément 
Le préjugé ni V’habitude.” 
The reports of M. La Perre de Roo have not yet been 
all published: the first appeared July, 1878; the second, 
January, 1879; the third, September, 1879. The last of these 
contains an account of his experiments on the breeding of 
many species of birds during a long series of years, in 
most cases beginning only with one couple of the same 
species. The generations obtained never showed any signs of 
degeneracy; on the contrary, several races were improved by his 
skilful breeding. 
Hybrids of A. Yama-Mai and A. Pernyi, so far as I know, 
have been complete failures respecting the reproduction of the 
species. A few years ago, M. Bigot, one of the best French 
sericulturists, obtained hybrids by crossing the female of 
A. Yama-Mai with the male of A. Pernyi, and vice versa, but 
these races are now extinct. Yet the larve and moths were fine 
and large. The late Mr. Andrew Murray showed me, in 1876, 
magnificent specimens of these hybrids which he had obtained 
from M. Bigot. These hybrids, like those obtained by other 
entomologists, hybernated in the pupa state. Had the hybrid 
come into existence in a state of nature, and in warm countries 
where the parent insects could live entirely in a wild state, would 
the said hybrids have had the power of reproduction, and would 
they have continued to live as distinct species? This of course 
it is, as yet, impossible to answer. 
M. EK. Berce, author of the ‘ Faune entomologique Francaise’ 
and other works, and who is a most experienced French 
entomologist, also had hybrid -Yama-Mai-Pernyi, which, I was 
told, had been in existence for a few years. M. Berce gave me 
in Paris (I believe during the winter of 1875) some nineteen 
cocoons of this hybrid species; they were so thin that they could 
hardly be called cocoons. Evidently the insect was in the last 
stage of its existence, for I only obtained one female moth, which 
paired with a male Pernyi. The larve, when hatched, were 
entirely black, like Pernyi, and had no resemblance to Yama-Mai. 
