14 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



position there were two noble moths, a male and female, just 

 emerged drying their wings in spite of the cold spell which had 

 set in — magnificent in colour, such a splendid green and rose 

 with well-marked neuration and canary-yellow bands (inter- 

 segmental on the abdomen). I find at the time of writing that 

 several more are about to emerge, and this makes the second, or 

 rather the third emergence, as I find upon inquiry from a resident 

 collector that he first noticed the larvse in the beginning of July. 

 These he got out in August. At the end of that month and the 

 beginning of September he had another brood of full-fed larvae, 

 imagines from which have been coming out all last month and 

 still are. After the first frost at the beginning of November I 

 found several young larvte frozen on the shrubs ; they never 

 revived ; the same fate had befallen the larvae of Pseiidophia 

 tirhaca, Cr., several of which we found frozen on the Lentiscus. 

 This was due to a sudden coup of icy wind -frost after a very 

 warm week, and the rapid change was preceded by a very heavy 

 cold rain-storm and snow on the hills, with apparently disastrous 

 results to insect life. 



The larvae of D. nerii are marvellous, immense as are all 

 Sphingid larvae, with those truncated anterior segments as in 

 E. elpenor, etc., and of the most marvellous colours. I noted 

 four forms, always with the same design except in the case of 

 the clear green and white larvae, which never had (he dark, 

 broad, wedge-shaped, coalescing patches up the sides. This 

 belongs only to the olive-coloured and bright salmon-pink and 

 nankeen - yellow forms. In the three latter forms the two 

 immense eye-spots on the fourth segment are always shot with 

 pale rose over the peacock-blue, giving an opal or iridescent 

 lustre to them, whereas in the pale green and white form the 

 eyes are an intense shaded antwerp blue shading to white in the 

 centre, and so brilliantly luminous are these spots that it was 

 difficult to believe that they have not the power of giving out 

 light in the dark. But I found such was not the case, as I 

 examined them frequently at night. 



The pupa is also most beautiful, so transparent over the 

 wing-cases with the curious median dark line straight down the 

 centre between the wing-cases. I suppose it marks the median 

 suture dividing the proboscidal sheath, and the large sepia- 

 coloured spots on either side of the abdomen in the region of 

 the spiracles make it very handsome. 



Well, for fourteen years we have tried to get D. nerii at 

 Cannes, so we are very delighted to find an abundance so suddenly. 

 I know of about one hundred having been captured in the larval 

 state this season. Our gardener brought me two pupae alive that 

 he raked out from under an oleander. Both showed a disposition 

 to emerge, but the cold arrived when they were well coloured. 

 One came out a hopeless cripple, the other died. These two I 



