NOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. 17 
she laid a goodly batch of eggs; but my expectations were 
falsified, and they hatched exactly three weeks after being laid.— 
‘GILBERT Henry Raynor; Hereward Hall, Ely, Dec. 8, 1882. 
Notes ON ACIDALIA CONTIGUARIA AND A. DEGENERARIA.— 
Referring to the observation (Entom. xiv. 283) of your corre- 
spondent, the Rev. O. P. Cambridge, on the irregular pupating of 
Chelonia caja, I may say that I noticed a similar habit in Acidalia 
contiguaria, the last two of the five years during which I kept the 
species in confinement. A certain number of the larve of each 
brood would, as your correspondent states, at a certain stage, 
grow more vigorously and go into pupa, while their fellows would 
remain stationary, apparently not feeding, and certainly not 
increasing in size. The larve that had spun up came out in the 
autumn of the same year and deposited eggs, which hatched, and 
hybernated while still quite small. ‘The others hybernated, and 
fed up the next spring. I considered that here was doubtless an 
inherited tendency acquired through natural selection for the 
better preservation of the life of the species, inasmuch as 
individuals in various stages of growth would presumably offer 
varied, and therefore proportionately greater, powers of resistance 
to the accidents of climate and season and the contingencies 
incidental to the struggle for existence. Through the kindness 
of Mrs. Hutchinson, who sent me the young larve, I have been 
this year enabled to breed Acidalia degeneraria, and I find the 
same tendency in this species, as some larve fed up and emerged 
this autumn; and from these I have young larve, which are now 
hybernating in company with the members of the previous 
generation. Another habit I may here mention, as having 
noticed in Acidaha contiguaria, is that of the larvee spinning up 
very frequently in pairs, 2.e., of two larve placing their cocoons 
in close proximity, sometimes a part of the thin network forming 
a common wall to the two cocoons. This habit, doubtless, is not 
confined to the species mentioned, and I would here wish to ask 
any of your correspondents, who may have also observed it, 
whether they have noticed any rule as to the sex of the insects 
thus spun up. If of opposite sex, it can be very easily conceived 
that a habit of this kind may be of great advantage to species 
which inhabit bleak and exposed situations where the conditions 
of existence are severe, as there will thus be a greater probability 
