152 



PSYCHE. 



Jaiuuirv 1SS9. 



P^SYOHE. 



CAMBRIDGE, MASS., JANUARY 18S9. 



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INACCURATE FIGURE OF A BUTTER- 

 FLY'S EGG. 



I have always wondered where the figure 

 of the egg of the vanessid hutt&v'Ay polyc/iloros 

 of Europe came from, as it was manifestly 

 incorrect, although it has been extensively 

 copied, and so far as I know, never found 

 fault with. Dr. Riley has just lent me the 

 volumes of Sepp's Nederlandsche Insecten, 

 and there I find the culprit. It is figured as 

 having the shape of a pear or perhaps better 

 of a gourd, being much constricted and pro- 

 duced at the top. In Sepp's other figures of 

 eggs which are laid in batches, the clusters 

 are figured likewise, as for instance in the 

 case ol urticae, but here this is not done, and 

 lam strongly under the impression that Sepp, 

 whose accuracy is well known, must have 

 mistaken the &gg of some other insect for 

 that of polyckloros, the eggs of which are 

 laid in clusters and resemble those oi' m/tiopa, 

 both in their manner of deposition and in 

 their form, so closely that thej' can hardly be 

 distinguished. 



6'.' H. Sciidder. 



MACULATION AND PUPATION OF 

 SMERINTHUS EXCAECATUS. 

 In Lexington, Mass., 17 Aug. 18SS, I con- 

 fined a large female Smerinthus excaecatiis in 

 a breeding cage. In a few hours she began 



to lay, attaching, singl\' or in small clusters, 

 some eighty roundish, light-green eggs to 

 the netting with which the cage was covered. 

 I then removed them to a glass jar. to pre- 

 vent the escape of the young larvae — should 

 they hatch — through the meshes of the net- 

 ting. On 25 Aug. the eggs began to hatch, 

 and the larvae ate freely of willow {Sal/'x), 

 with which I supplied them. The first molt 

 was taking place 2 Sept., and the second 11 

 Sept. Up to this time I had noticed no red 

 spots, but after this they appeared on less 

 than one-half of the specimens then alive. 

 As is the case amongst most of the sphing- 

 idae, I believe, while young, the mortality of 

 my 5. geminatns and 5. excaecatiis has been 

 great, so that at the completion of their 

 second molt less than half had survived, 

 though I had taken much pains to keep their 

 jar clean and well supplied with fresh twigs 

 of willow. 



The red spots, besides being present in 

 only a part of my specimens, were unequally 

 distributed in these, some having both the 

 stigmatal and dorsal, while others had only 

 the stigmatal spots. 



About 25 Sept. the greater part of these 

 larvae stopped eating and settled to rest in the 

 bottom of their jar. As they were apparently' 

 very far from being full}' grown, having 

 reached a size perhaps half or two-thirds of 

 that which should normally be attained by 

 these larvae, I was disinclined to consider 

 their behavior a preliminarv to pupating. 

 After a few hours, however, to my great 

 surprise, they pupated, forming of course 

 very small chrysalids. The interesting ques- 

 tion in regard to these larvae is this : — did I 

 overlook two molts, owing to the habit that 

 this larva has of eating all of its cast-off 

 skin but the head, or did they pupate when 

 they had accomplished only two of their or- 

 thodox number of molts.' The former 

 supposition seems to be rendered unlikely 

 from the fact that at the time of pupating 

 they were so far from having attained their 

 normal size, not to speak of the improbability 



