412 Dr. T. A. Chapman on 
quite disprove the suspicion that the larva followed 
Platyptiliid habits and reached the second instar in 
autumn, but, except for this guess, it left us in the 
position stated at length in Tutt’s “ British Lepidoptera,” 
Vol. V, pp. 391-3. 
It has given me, therefore, great satisfaction to have 
succeeded at length in solving this problem, which had 
puzzled us so much, and the satisfaction is the greater 
in that the solution is rather unexpected and certainly 
somewhat extraordinary; nor is it much diminished that, 
the clue to it was afforded in an almost accidental 
manner. 
Marasmarcha tuttidactyla (or agrorum, var. tuttidactyla) 
was found commonly at Gavarnie, and a 9 laid some eggs. 
These were placed in a glass tube quite alone, under a sort 
of general idea that something might be done with them 
if they would refrain from hatching till I got home. 
However, when I got home they had not only hatched, 
but most of them had made their arrangements for the 
winter. Having no better place in which to do it, they 
had wedged themselves between the glass and the paper 
covering the cork and spun themselves small cocoons of 
white silk, several together. The latter circumstance is 
no doubt accidental, as naturally the eggs are laid singly, 
and is therefore due to there being practically only these 
spots available to them. [Pl XXVIII, fig. 5.] 
I was naturally anxious to ascertain whether ph.vo- 
dactyla had precisely the same habit. This seemed 
almost certain from the similarity of the species, and 
that the larva of phwodactyla certainly hibernates very 
small. I therefore examined with great care the potted 
plant of QOnonis already referred to, on which I had 
left sleeved a number of larve of phwxodactyla on 
leaving home. The experiment was so far successful 
that I found a number of empty egg-shells on the plant, 
but I failed utterly to find the young larve in their 
cocoons, although they were almost unquestionably there 
somewhere. 
Very luckily I picked up about mid-August on our 
downs a very belated 2 phwodactyla, who very kindly 
supplied me with a moderate store of eggs. These I 
divided into two portions. One I placed in a glass tube 
with a dead leaf or two of QOnonis and some portions 
of glass slide covers; the other I put on a comparatively 
