194 Mr. Henry House on Hybrid Individuals. 



one or two, not more, and put them in the pot with male Populi, and 

 vice versa, and then placed the two pots close side by side in the 

 garden or window for the night, so that the female of each species 

 formed an attraction to its own male, while the male could only 

 gain access to the female of the other species. By this treatment 

 I obtained five broods of eggs of Populi impregnated with Ocellatus, 

 and one of Ocellatus impregnated with Populi ; only about thirty 

 eggs of one of the former broods hatched, about the middle of 

 June last. Nineteen caterpillars I reared to perfection, which went 

 under ground in about a month or five weeks after ; and in August 

 last twelve of the moths came out perfect, the other seven are 

 still in the chrysalis, and will, in all probability, come out in May 

 next. The insects thus obtained are as near alike each other as any 

 species that I am acquainted with, and are as nearly intermediate 

 as we can conceive. The power of reproduction is completely 

 lost, as they appear to be as near intermediate between the sexes 

 as between the species j they evidently partake of the nature of 

 both sexes : as proof, every insect of the genus Smerinthus, on 

 touching, discharges copiously a fluid, which in the male is pure 

 white, in the female of a yellow or ochre colour. This insect dis- 

 charged, at the same motion, first the white and then the ochre 

 fluid quite distinct, and this compound discharge was quite uniform 

 in every specimen, which is never the case in any true species or 

 sex. I have often indulged in fanciful ideas respecting this pro- 

 duction, but I never conceived of such an unfinished painting as 

 it is ; this is not nature improved by art, but nature sadly defaced 

 by art, as the beauty of both species is in a great measure lost. 



I took care to provide myself with eggs of both species that 

 should hatch at the same time as my hybrids, for the sake of 

 comparison ; in their infant state no difference was observable 

 between them and Populi, very little in their second stage, still 

 more in the third, and finally more like Ocellatus than Populi; the 

 chrysalis was as much different from either, and yet as much 

 resembling both, as the moth. Whether such a production has 

 ever been obtained before or not I am totally ignorant, as I have 

 never had the advantage of studying any work on Entomology. 

 I have also several other varieties of similar origin in contempla- 

 tion, but my leisure time is very limited ; and I shall be very glad 

 to hear that some gentleman of leisure has produced a brood 

 between a male Pojmli and female Ocellatus by this day twelve- 

 month. 



