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II. Description of a neio Genus and Species of Pyralidse, received from the Rev. J. K. 

 Hocking, from the Kangra Valley, Punjab, India. By the Right Hon. Lord 

 Walsingham, M.A., F.E.S., F.L.S. 



(Plate V.) 

 Eead 16th June, 1887. 



ABOUT seven years ago I received from my friend Mr. Hocking *, then residing at 

 Dharinsala in the Punjab, a batch of cocoons with some preserved larvae and a few- 

 specimens of a moth, to which, baving regard to the evidence of its life-history, I found 

 it difficult to assign a place in the accepted system of classification. 



The following notes accompanied the specimens : — " On Jamfn. Larvae covered with 

 a thick coating of dirtyjwhite silk ; each larva in a separate compartment, great numbers 

 of which joined together form a mass as large as a man's fist. The larvae when young 

 march over the leaves as processionary larvae, covering the leaves as they go with silk, 

 which after a little forms the outside of the compartment and is covered with f rass ; 

 after a little each individual makes a compartment for itself, using the frass-covered 

 silk, which it lines, as it draws it round itself, with a fresh covering of silk, so that there 

 are two layers of silk Avith frass between them. I had worked for two years for these, 

 and then found all the larvae in June turned into pupae. 



" Imago during the first fortnight in July. 



" A second lot found in October furnished the larvae now brought." 



The collection received at the same time contained so large a number of new and 

 interesting species, as to induce me to indulge the hope that it might afford material 

 for a separate work. The greater part of these, together with many larvae admirably 

 preserved by Mr. Hocking, are now in the British Museum; and those which have 

 not yet been described have become the subject of special study, with a view to 

 publication. 



Mr. F. Moore, to whom the specimens were shown, was somewhat incredulous as to the 

 connexion between the larvae and the perfect insects, having met with no similar series 

 of transformations in his large experience of Indian Lepidoptera. I received no further 

 particulars about the species under consideration until 1885, after Mr. Hocking had 

 returned to England and settled in Suffolk. At the risk of some slight repetition, I 

 quote his letter, dated April 1-lth of that year, in full, so far as it relates to this subject : — 



" I am so pleased, I have succeeded in getting home from India a box full of cocoons 



of that moth about which Mr. Moore was, and I believe still is, so sceptical. When 



they arrived this morning, I found, on opening the box, that there was a quantity of frass 



in it, showing that the larvae had been put in before they had changed. On cutting open 



* Rev. Jno. H. Hocking, Debenham Vicarage, Stonham, Suffolk. 



SECOND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. V. 8 



