36 LEPTDOPTERA. 



days of March bring them out, they bask in the sunshine for a 

 week or two, but never feed in the spring. About the middle 

 -of April they begin to spin their cocoons." A more simple 

 plan, which has been successful, is to half fill a flower-pot with 

 moss, placing a few larvae therein ; plant it in the ground, and 

 tie it down with gauze ; but this is not very reliable, and but 

 few larvae can be accommodated in a flower pot. The insect 

 has been successfully reared by the larvae being placed in a 

 well ventilated box containing dead leaves, in an icehouse, for 

 the winter; of a dozen larvae so treated, eight were reared. It 

 is even stated that full grown autumn larvae may be cheated 

 of their desire to hybernate by being confined in a place where 

 the temperature is continuously high — as near a stove ; but in 

 all cases it is essential that they should have plenty of air. 

 When the insect is so plentiful that larvae can readily be found 

 in the spring — at which time they are always far more scarce 

 than in the autumn — it is obviously unnecessary to hybernate 

 them in confinement. When secured in the spring and con- 

 fined in a warm place they will at once spin up in sand, 

 among vegetable refuse, or each in a separate chip bos. An 

 illustration of the docility of the creature at this period is 

 before me. A friend, not an entomologist, was riding over a 

 wild moor in the north of Ireland, one sunny spring day, 

 when he was struck with the beauty of a large caterpillar. 

 Looking around he discovered among the debris of some past 

 picnic the neck of a bottle. In this he placed the caterpillar, 

 plugged each end and put it into his pocket. When next 

 looked at, the larva had formed its cocoon, and a few weeks 

 later the moth duly emerged. This cocoon, in its curious 

 receptacle, is carefully preserved. Apparently distributed 

 over the whole of the United Kingdom, except the Shetland 

 Isles, and possibly the Orkneys ; frequenting heaths, moors, 

 fens, rough pasture fields, and hill sides, also sea sandhills, 

 and apparently almost all uncultivated places. Common 

 throughout the continent of Europe, except the extreme 

 north and south ; also in Siberia. 



