( xxxii ) 



was nevertheless energetic enough to denude herself of all 

 her clothing. An imago and a parasite from the same larva 

 have not infrequently been recorded, but very often doubt 

 has been thi'own on the occurrence. In this instance this is 

 impossible, since the apterous female of 0. aurolimhata not 

 only never leaves her cocoon, but never makes an opening in 

 it, that being done by the male. In this case the cocoon had 

 no opening in it, and nothing had gone in or out since the 

 larva spun it. The miserable development of the female showed 

 that it had suffered some serious malady, and there was 

 no trace of a second larva having been in the same cocoon. 

 Some Fellows may like to be assured that the wretched 

 fragment exhibited is really the imago of a moth. Such as it 

 is, it is precisely like the ordinary female of 0. aurolimhata 

 after she had laid her eggs and denuded herself of her wool 

 and died in the cocoon. The only difference is that this 

 specimen never had any eggs to lay. 



The President exhibited the dry form of Precis actia bred 

 by Mr. Guy A. K. Marshall from an egg laid by a female 

 of the wet form. The parent was captured by Mr. Marshall 

 at Salisbury, Mashonaland (5000 ft.), on February 14th, 1903 ; 

 the egg was laid on the following day. It hatched February 

 20th, the larva pupated March 16th, the perfect insect, a 

 male, emei'ged March 28th, The differences between these 

 two forms ai'e as astonishing as those between the two phases 

 of Precis ant Hope, hred, the dry from the wet, by Mr. Marshall 

 last year (Trans, Ent. Soc. London, 1902, pp. 418-20). In 

 fact, vipon the upper surface of the wings the differences are 

 much greater than in this latter species, the dominant colour 

 upon the black backgi'ound of the dry form of actia being 

 blue, as it is in the dry form of sesamus, while the red is of 

 so deep a shade as to be sombre and inconspicuous. In the 

 wet form these blue markings are only represented by 

 marginal, submarginal, and apical traces, while the dull red 

 becomes a bright and vivid reddish-brown, Avhich forms a 

 startling contrast with the background and the row of black 

 spots which crosses both wings. Within these spots, in the 

 position of the chief blue band of the dry form, the reddish- 

 brown band of the wet form passes into a brilliant pearly white 



