{ Ixxi ) 



observed by him in connection with some of the Psychids, 

 and the double moult at the end of the larval life was, 

 therefore, very remarkable. 



The President said that many years ago he had studied 

 the young stages of Smerinthus quercus, and had found that 

 the young larvse, when entirely without food, would pass 

 through the first stage, change their skins in an apparently 

 normal manner, and thus enter tlie second stage. He 

 attributed this power to the large amount of food material 

 carried over from the store in the relatively immense eggs of 

 this species. 



Dr. Chapman said that all ''plume" larvae in the first 

 instar appear to have a smooth skin, but after the first moult 

 develop small spicules. Those of Pterophorus lithodactijlus 

 that hybernate within the ovum are spiculate on the first 

 instar ; it might be that tlie larva had undergone a moult in 

 the egg-shell. The Lithocolletids sustain one or two moults 

 without eating; in the case of Acantlioj^syche fehretta the 

 probably hybernatiug larva changes in the autumn to a 

 colourless maofo^ot. The larva of Scardia holeti makes a 

 cocoon and then throws ofi: its skin, hybernating as a 

 colourless white maggot, and it does not eat again before 

 it pupates in the spring. 



Mr. TuTT then said that the statement of Dr. Chapman led 

 him to note that, some ten years ago, he had eggs of Dryas 

 paphia which hatched in a tube and were left without food. 

 These larvpe lived on into the winter without feeding. In 

 looking over Buckler's Larvae, etc., the other day he ob- 

 served, p. 59, Buckler's remark that "the larva on its first 

 appearance in spring is no more than \ inch long, having 

 apparently moulted but once before hybernation." He 

 wondered whether his observation was inaccurate, and 

 queried whether D. papJiia did moult before hybernation. 

 It might of course, but did it moult without feeding % He 

 had already recorded that the larva of A. adippe was actually 

 formed and hybernated in the egg. 



In further reply to Mr. Tutt, the President said that he 

 also had observed that the young larvie of Dryas paplda 

 possessed the power of hybernating without taking food, and 



