214 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



few remaining daj^s of their larval life, when all pupated success- 

 fully. In the beginning of December I placed them along with 

 other pupae to force in a moderate heat — about 70°. The pupae 

 lay on dry soil, a damp cloth placed over the muslin-covered lid 



keeping the air within the box sufficiently moist. The first 

 example to emerge was a male on Jan. 5th, and others continued 

 to come out at intervals until March 1st. This in itself is to me 

 a curious point. When a number of larvae of the same age 

 pupate together, are put to force together, and are subjected to 

 the same temperature, why should one moth take as much as 

 two months longer to develop than another ? Out of sixteen 

 pupae I bred fourteen (nine males, five females) perfect imagines, 

 and two (one male, one female) whose wings never developed. 

 With the exception of one male, which is as near as possible 

 var. douhledaijaria, all the specimens are of a distinct inter- 

 mediate form between type and var. doubledayaria. Not one 

 approaches nearly that form generally recognized as the type. 

 Does this point to parents of opposite forms — one type, the other 

 var. doubledayaria ; or to typical parents, each more than usually 

 dark, and producing still darker descendants ? 



The fore wings are thickly speckled with black scales, in 

 some parts so closely as to form blotches, especially towards the 

 tip and around the hind margin. Throughout the lighter por- 

 tions of the wing the nervures show up distinctly black. The 

 hind wings are dark round the hind margin, becoming gradually 

 lighter towards the base. The body is about evenly speckled 

 with black and white, although in two of the specimens it is 

 almost entirely black. 



The wide intervals which occurred between the emergences 

 of my specimens made it impossible for me to attempt pairing 

 in captivity ; while the early date, occasioned by forcing, 



