The Zoologist— September, 1870. 2303 



abbreviated brown stripe on each side, including a short oblique 

 whitish streak ; hind part slightly elongated ; hind border slightly 

 angular. Fore wings green ; a brown discoidal streak, including a 

 few elongated pale testaceous points or little streaks; in some cases 

 tips reddish. Hind wings pellucid. Length of the body 10^ lines ; 

 expansion of the fore wings 18 lines. Cairo. 



Gen. Chrotogonus, Serv. 

 44. Luguhris. Ommexecha lugubre, Blanch. Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. 

 V. 616; pi. 22, f. 5. Cairo. Heliopolis. Souakin. Harkeko. 



Francis Walker. 



Unusual Oviposition of Rkodites Rosce, Linn. — As two years ago I published in this 

 journal a case of an unusual number of normal bedeguars on the common briar 

 (Zool. S. S. 1206), I think it expedient to use the same channel for the record of a 

 case of abnormal egg-laying by the same insect, Rhodites Rosse, Linn. There is now 

 before me a sprig of the briar, the principal stem of which is of about the thickness of 

 a goose-quill. Every alternate leaf of this twig presents one or several leaflets crowned 

 with one or two very small tufts of bedeguar bristles. The stem is quite free from them. 

 Beginning with the lowest leaf, I find two tufts on the midrib of the same left 

 leaflets; the next alternate leaf possesses a tuft in the axil of the two leaflets nearest 

 to the stem, two tufts on the nearest left leaflet, one tuft on the second right leaflet, 

 and a tuft on both the third leaflets ; the stems of the third and fourth alternate leaves 

 are stunted, and each leaflet of these exhibits one tuft; the fifth alternate leaf shows 

 the left leaflet of the second pair of leaflets provided with one tuft, and the following 

 pair of leaflets is likewise adorned. I give this detailed account, because, to my mind, 

 it proves the modus operandi of the laying female as plainly as any written record. 

 The insect in question must have been physically exhausted, or else of loo weak a 

 constitution to choose the hard stem of the rose for the deposition of its eggs ; yet, 

 impelled by the twin of reason, instinct, it wanted to get rid of its eggs. Su instead 

 of girdling the hard stem by a series of punctures, producing a many-celled bedeguar, 

 it rambled over the whole twig, and, puncturing the soft leaves in one or more places, 

 deposited in each spot a single egg. Vagaries of this sort have been observed before 

 in this species, as far as an egg or two are concerned, but never yet to my knowledge 

 has it been noticed, that a whole batch of eggs has been disseminated by the present 

 Rhodites in the manner here described ; and the race would be doomed speedily to 

 perish, if it should become the rule, unless indeed an appropriate increase of the size 

 of the solitary cell thus created took place, which would allow the inmate to sustain its 

 life, by feeding on the vegetal juices, after the manner of allied species. But so long 

 as this does not occur, the afilux of sap, increased as it is by the single irritating 

 puncture, is wholly inadequate to supply to the lana suflBcient nourishment, and the 

 tuft generally dries up before the former has attained the full-grown state. — Albert 

 Miiller; South Norwood, July 24, 1870. 



