﻿OF THE STATE EKT0M0LO6IST. 183 



yet doubled. The compressed, horny ovipositor, which plays with 

 great ease and tentative motion oij the two telescopic subjoints of the 

 abdomen, as described on p. 32, is thrust in between the folded sides 

 of the blade, and the eggs are glued along the groove in rows of from 

 five to twenty, and covered with a white, glistening adhesive fluid, 

 which not only fastens them to each other, but draws the two sides of 

 the grass blade close around them, so that nothing but a narrow glisten- 

 ing streak is visible. I think also, that the two edges of the grass 

 blade are sometimes clasped by the opening hind border of the ovi- 

 positor, so as to give the insect a firmer hold, and fold the leaf more 

 closely on the eggs. Finding it difficult to make satisfactory observa- 

 tions in the field, I transferred living moths to glass cages which were 

 furnished with blue grass sward. Here again most of the eggs were 

 laid in the manner described, and on the green and dry blades indif- 

 ferently : some were, however, thrust in between the sheath and stalk, 

 as I had anticipated they might be, while others were thrust into the 

 crevices on the sides of the sward, which had been cut with a knife. 

 The female having once commenced to lay, is extremely active 

 and busy, especially during warm nights, and I should judge that but 

 two or three days are required to empty the ovaries, which have a 

 uniform development. A string of 15 or 20 eggs is placed in position 

 in two or three minutes, and by the end of ten more I have known 

 the moth to choose another leaf and supply it with another string. 

 Many must be laid very soon after vegetation starts, as some moths 

 taken in the middle of April had already exhausted their supply ; yet 

 the bulk of them are not laid till toward the end of April. Very few 

 of the moths and only those captured at sugar looked at all fresh, 

 while all those having the eggs fully formed showed unmistakable 

 signs of having hibernated ; in fact most of those found laying had the 

 wings so tattered and rubbed that they were scarcely recognizable. 

 The moth perishes within a day after having exhausted her supply of 

 eggs. The egg is glistening white when first laid, and only becomes 

 tarnished or faintly dull yellowish toward maturity. Just before 

 the hatching of the larva which, in a uniform temperature of 75° F. 

 takes place from the 8th to the 10th day after deposition, the brown 

 head of the embryon shows distinctly through the shell. The newly 

 hatched larva is dull translucent white in color, with a uniformly 

 brown head, and the two front pair of prolegs are so atrophied as to 

 necessitate the looping of the body in traveling. The development 

 of my larvae, reared in a uniform room temperature of about 80°, has 

 been remarkably rapid. They underwent five molts and but three 

 days intervened on an average between each. Yet under the same 



