COLLECTING OVA, LARVAE, AND PUPJ1 111 



mine the spot from which it was removed. Now give your atten- 

 tion to the sod itself. If loose and friable, break it up gently, 

 keeping a sharp eye for falling pupae, and also for earthen cocoons 

 that are easily mistaken for little lumps of soil. 



If the soil is held together by roots, it must be pulled to pieces, 

 and the fragments shaken over a bare piece of ground where the 

 fall of a pupa or cocoon could be easily seen ; and if you have 

 removed a grassy turf, it will be necessary to look between the bases 

 of the blades as well as among the roots. 



In this way you may search round tree after tree, wherever the 

 soil is of such a character as to allow of the admittance and shelter 

 of larvae. But the variability of your success will be quite beyond 

 your comprehension. Sometimes you will sight a grand old oak 

 with the most favourable anticipations, and consider yourself quite 

 certain of a good find when you discover, on a nearer approach, 

 the liberal coating of moss that clothes its trunk and the dry sandy 

 soil at its foot ; and yet the most careful search ends in nothing 

 but disappointment. At other times you try your luck at tree 

 after tree without ever seeing a single pupa or even a cast-off case, 

 and then, when just on the point of despairing, you search round 

 another that is apparently much less promising, and, to your great 

 surprise and delight, a dozen or two are turned out in a few minutes. 

 Such an occurrence as this is not at all uncommon, and cannot be 

 satisfactorily explained, but we must take things as they come and 

 make the best of them, remembering that pupa searching is one of 

 the best of all entomological operations wherewith to test one's 

 perseverance and patience. 



It may be mentioned, in conclusion, that the pupae of Lepidoptera 

 are never to be found far below the surface of the soil. Generally 

 they exist, if buried at all, only an inch or two down, and very 

 rarely at a greater depth than four inches. 



In our next chapter we shall learn how to rear the perfect 

 insects from the earlier stages we have been considering. 



