A Life Cycle of Acidalia marginipunctata, Gdze (promu- 

 tata, Gn.), and other Notes on the Species. 



By RoBT. Adkin, F.E.S. Read February 2~th, 1902. 



Just twenty years ago some of my Folkestone friends sent me 

 larvas of Acidalia inarginipundata, with instructions to " feed them 

 on knotgrass until the autumn, and when they were ready for hyber- 

 nation to put them in a large bottle with dry sticks until the spring, 

 when they would feed up on plantain." The first part of these 

 instructions I carried out faithfully, but had no chance of following 

 them through, as the larvas all perished during the winter. 



A couple of years later I took a moth of this species at Box Hill on 

 July 14th, and obtained ova which hatched on the 30th of that 

 month; the resulting larvae fed slowly on knotgrass until the end of 

 August, when they were transferred to a pot of growing plants of 

 tormentilla, bramble, etc., and kept out of doors, but under cover, 

 and on the 9th of June following a solitary imago appeared. 



My first attempts, therefore, at rearing the species were not particu- 

 larly encouraging, and as my attention was occupied pretty fully with 

 other species I did not repeat them for some years ; but falling in 

 with the imago very commonly at Eastbourne for several autumns in 

 succession, I became interested again, and recommenced operations 

 with several batches of ova, and so far succeeded that I got the 

 majority of the larvae through the winter, and several of them into 

 pupje in the following June, but failed to rear any moths. The 

 larvae this time had been kept through the winter on growing plants, 

 as in the last-mentioned case, but several other low-growing species 

 were added to those mentioned. 



Having so nearly succeeded, it occurred to me that my failure was 

 probably the result of some small matter in the management of the 

 larvas, either during hybernation or after they commenced feeding 

 in the spring : and with a view to benefiting by the experience of 

 others, who had, perchance, been more successful than myself, I 

 looked up the literature bearing on the subject in such books as 

 I had at hand. One would naturally expect that there would be no 

 lack of detail regarding so common a species, but as a matter of fact 

 the amount of useful information to be obtained was exceedingly 

 scanty. For instance, Stainton's " Manual " (under the name of 

 A. incanata) tells us that the moth appears from July to end of 

 August, and that the larva feeds on pink, vetch, and yarrow, in June. 

 Meyrick's " Handbook " — moth in June and July, larva August to 



