226 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
taken. If the gentlemen who have made acquaintance with 
Argynnis Niobe will associate with themselves one or two 
entomologists of known skill in larva-hunting, and, without 
indicating the precise position of the valley or hollow between 
Wye and Ashford to the entomological world generally, 
arrange to make a careful united search for the larve of 
A. Niobe during the spring, we may possibly get a result 
conclusive enough to satisfy all sceptics.—J. R. 8. Clifford. 
[I think Mr. Clifford can never have hunted for the larve of 
Aglaia or of Adippe, or he would scarcely have proposed so 
hopeless a task as seeking for those of Niobe.—H. Newman.] 
Food-plant of Orgyia gonosltigna.—May I venture to 
remind my friendly correspondent, Mr. Robinson, of the old 
saying, that “latet dolus in generalibus.” Had I been 
disposed to generalise a short time ago, with reference to the 
food-plant of the species cited, I should have said, speaking 
of it from a knowledge of its habits in the Wimbledon 
locality, that probably its proper food-plant was oak, though 
it might occasionally be found on the hazel in summer, and 
on sallow in spring. I know that in confinement Wimbledon 
larve take oak by preference. Now, at Coventry, O. gono- 
stigma chooses, as Mr. Robinson finds, blackthorn and 
whitethorn, preferring the latter. And my friend, Mr. Barrett, 
of the South London Entomological Society, who was 
acquainted with the Doncaster locality, tells me that there 
the larve were taken on.the whitethorn. Were the species 
to become more common with us, we might discover that— 
like its near relative, O. antiqua—this.is inclined to be a 
general feeder. The apparent difficulty in the way of its 
increase in England is the peculiarity of its life-history; the 
hybernation, which carries it through the cold months, 
endangering the lives of many of the larve, as they seem to 
protect themselves very slightly. As most breeders know, by 
a little management, the larve of O. gonostigma may be got 
to feed up the same year in which they are hatched; but I 
have been pursuing an investigation of some slight interest, 
namely, to ascertain if, at any point we please during the 
~ larval growth, we can, by placing them in a lower temperature 
and withdrawing the food, induce individuals to become 
torpid. Though hardly able to say as yet that my experiments 
are conclusive, so far as they have gone they would show 
