us 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND OBSEKVATIONS. 



AcHERONTiA ATROPos IN SouTH Africa. — Relative to the note on 

 the rearing of Acheiontia atropos [ante, p. 227), I should like to give 

 my experience with the species in this country. I may first of all 

 mention that the insect is certainly douhle-brooded, and possibly there 

 are three broods in a year ; also that by far the greater number of the 

 larvfe I have found (at least thirty) are of the brilliant yellow form. 

 Last January I found fourteen nearly full-grown larvae, and after 

 allowing them to pupate, I did as collectors often do in England, 

 turned up the pupa out of the soil. All were perfect, except one 

 crippled in changing, and two others which were evidently ichneu- 

 moned, as I found them almost rotten and covered with maggots. 

 From the eleven perfect pupae I only obtained two perfect specimens 

 and one cripple; all the others died. In May, 1901, I had seven fine 

 full-grown larvae, which I put in a large five-gallon paraffin tin, with 

 at least ten inches of sliglitly moist sand ; all these went down to 

 pupate by May 26th, and were left undisturbed. The result has been 

 most satisfactory, as I have reared all, and only one was slightly 

 crippled. They all came out in September : two on the 7th, one on 

 the 9th, the cripple on the 13th, one on the 16th, one on the 19th, and 

 one on the 20th. All the specimens are slightly smaller than my 

 British ones, but this may be because they are the second brood. I 

 do not know how it would answer- in England to leave the pupae 

 alone, but here it is certainly better not to disturb them. The two 

 perfect specimens which I bred from the January lot emerged, one on 

 the 18tli and the other on the 25th of February, and were only in the 

 pupa state about twenty -one days ; the second lot were about four 

 months. Of course there was no forcing here, and I did not even 

 damp the sand at all, in fact the tin was not moved until all the moths 

 had emerged. On turning out the sand I found the empty cells were 

 almost on the bottom of the tin, and there was at least ten inches of 

 sand in the tin ; this gives some idea of the depth these larvffi will go. 

 In all cases where the cells were not entirely destroyed when turning 

 out the sand, they seemed much larger than necessary for the pupae. 

 I may also mention that I never heard the slightest sound from the 

 eleven pupje I turned up, and, with the exception of one that was 

 ichneumoned, found last year, I have not heard any sound from the 

 larvffi. Food-plants here are numerous. I fed the larvae I had 

 upon sweet potato and tomato leaves, but they also eat a very large- 

 leaved thistle, and a small-leaved climbing plant. I have also found 

 one on a kind of bramble. In any case the larvae are very common, and 

 considering that so many are the very conspicuous yellow form, I 

 wonder they are not more ichneumoned than they are. I tried to get 

 a pairing, keeping two males and a female alive for that purpose, but 

 without success ; I fed them on moist sugar and a little water. All 

 these three cried togetiier, whenever I went to the box they were in, 

 and they are alive now at the tim3 of writing. — G. F. Leigh ; Mus- 

 grave Eoad, Durban, Natal, Sept. 21st, 1901. 



Gynandromorphism in Lepidoptera. — A theory was put forward by 

 Herr Dorfmeister (Stett. Ent. Zeit, 1868, p. 181) that a mixture of the 



