30 B. C. EXTO:\[OLOGICAL SOCIKTY 



race. It is very common throughout the Province and it occurs all over 

 Canada and the United States. It is often seen hovering over flowers 

 in the twilight and is attracted by light. I have seen dozens of them 

 flving around the arc-lights in the suburbs of Victoria. 



(14) 762 Celerio lineata Fab. (The Striped Morning Sphinx). 

 This is supposed to be the commonest sphingid in North America and 

 has probably the most extensive range of any of them. Southern British 

 Columbia is probably its northernmost limit ; it extends from coast to 

 coast in the United States and ranges southward through Mexico to 

 Central America. In Colorado they swarm about the electric lights in 

 the streets of the cities, literally in hundreds. It is not so common as 

 the preceding species in this Province, but is found in the same localities. 

 The two species resemble each other in colour and markings, but are 

 easily distinguished by lineata having six oblique narrow white lines 

 crossing each of the forewings ; the thorax is white striped. The 

 larvae of this species show great diversity in markings and are the 

 most variable of all sphingid larvae. It is almost omnivorous — feeding 

 on a great variety of dissimilar plants, including apple, plum, currant, 

 gooseberry, turnip and chickweed. It is closely allied to the Striped 

 Hawk Moth of the Old World (Celerio livornica), which has only four 

 white longitudinal stripes on the thorax instead of six as in our species. 



EARLY STAGES OF NEPYTIA PHANTASMARIA STRECKER 

 (LEPIDOPTERA) 



By Geo. O. Day 



A female of this species captured flj'ing at Quamichan, Vancouver 

 Island, on 3rd Sept., 1915, and confined in a chip box, laid 69 eggs in 

 small batches of from two to ten each, the ova securely attached by 

 their sides. Colour a dull light green of a yellowish tinge. Shape 

 bluntly oval — upper and lower sides very slightly flattened — looked at 

 under hand lens no surface markings were visible. Micropylar end of 

 egg rather flat with a central dot. After ten days or a fortnight the 

 colour changed to a purplish gray as if the larva enclosed was in process 

 of formation, but the eggs continued in this condition without hatching. 

 On 17th October I cut one of the eggs open and found it filled with a 

 yellowish green fluid without any sign of larval development. No 

 larvae appeared until the following May, when on the 7th of that month 

 I found two on the lid of the box, evidently just hatched out. and the 

 remainder followed in the course of a few days. Length 3 m.m. Head 

 and claspers wider than the rest of the body ; head black. Skin behind 

 the head seemed to fold over it. This fold, and the anal claspers. 

 lighter in colour than the rest of the body, being a watery green. Two 



