THE MAGPIE MOTH. 



451 



currant is grown. The insect is a very bold one, and while it 

 is engaged in depositing its eggs, may be picked up with the 

 fingers without much difficulty. 



The larva, which is represented on Plate XVI. Fig. 6, is 

 coloured very mucli like the perfect insect. Being so common, 

 I have been accustomed to watch it from childhood, and have 

 much to say on the subject. But Mr. Newman has so com- 



XLIX 



1. Amphydasis prodromaria. 

 a. Biston, larva. 



2. Scodiona belgiaria. .3. Hibemia defoliaria. 



6. Hibemia, female. c. Hibemia, larva. 



pletely made it his own that I can do no better than give his 

 own spirited words : — 



' I have seen the females of this species busily engaged in 

 oviposition, not only in the evening, but in the middle of a 

 warm summer's-day, depositing a single egg on a leaf of goose- 

 berry or black-currant, and then flying off to another. I once 

 watched ten females simultaneously occupied in this manner 

 along a garden wall less than eighty yards in length. 



' Like the eggs of most diurnal Lepidoptera, they remain but 



G G 2 



