March, 1898.] WEBSTER : DEVELOPMENT 07 DRASTERIA ERECHTEA. 27 



NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRASTERIA 

 ERECHTEA (Cramer).* 



PLATES IV AND V. 



By F. M. Webster. 



The preparatory stages of this species have been studied by Professor 

 French, f and I have no expectation of adding anything to his careful 

 and painstaking work. Mr. M. V. SlingerlandJ has also reared the 

 species from the egg, but his studies relate more especially to the char- 

 acters of the adults and those of closely allied species and varieties. My 

 own studies were begun with the idea of watching the individual devel- 

 opment of the young as closely as I was able, gleaning any points re- 

 garding such development as was possible, and which had not been al- 

 ready recorded. I can hardly claim that the work was premeditated, 

 as, but for what might be termed a bit of carelessness, the study would 

 have never been commenced. 



September 24th, I captured a female moth and, killing her as was 

 supposed, placed her on the setting board. On the following day it 

 was found that she had revived and though unable to release herself, 

 had struggled about and completely ruined herself so far as a desirable 

 specimen was concerned (which I later had cause to regret), and, in the 

 meanwhile, deposited a number of eggs. As she was captured among 

 grass and clover, it was probably during the performance of that duty 

 that she fell into my hands, and the labor was finished while pinned 

 upon the setting board. 



The eggs were of a malachite green, as described by Professor 

 French, but I found them somewhat more flattened at the poles than he 

 has described, though the drawings made from alcoholic specimens 

 hardly represent them as they appear when freshly deposited, the flat- 

 tening at the poles being closely illustrated by the appearance of the 

 upper end in the middle of the three illustrations on Plate IV, the eggs 

 from which drawing was made being those deposited by an unmated 

 female. 



The eggs were placed near a bunch of grass, transplanted to the 

 vivarium, but they hatched while no one was about the insectary to ob- 



*Read before Section " F," Zoology, of A. A. A. S., Detroit, Michigan, August 10 



1897. 



■\ Papilio, Vol. IV, pp. 148-149. 

 JInsect Life, Vol. V, pp. 87-88. 



