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on these he had sleeved an immense number of alni larvae. 

 Needless to say, he succeeded admirably, and bred thou- 

 sands. The great and almost only difficulty that follows 

 sleeving, is with those larvae that require earth in which to 

 pupate. That can be accomplished by fixing on the branch 

 a pot of earth ; but that is not so easily done. Of course 

 you can also pick out your full-fed larvae, and place them 

 in other cages. As far as alni is concerned all that is 

 necessary is to place inside the sleeves some pieces of rotten 

 wood, or cut lengths of old pithy bramble stems or elder, 

 and then the larvae burrow in the pith to pupate. 



Internal feeding larvcB. — To feed up these from the ^^^ 

 is generally a difficult task, and one can only succeed 

 well with a few species, root feeders, such as teuipli, etc. 

 You have only to get prepared a iew boxes of earth, and 

 plant roots of cow parsnip {Heracleum sphondyliuni) ; and as 

 soon as the larvae hatch, transfer three or four into the axils 

 of the growing leaves on each head of plant, and then they 

 are left to themselves. No care is taken to cover the plant 

 until the middle of July ; then you may cut down your plant 

 within a {^ssi inches of the root, and cover with canvas. This 

 is to prevent the escape of larvae when they leave the plant to 

 pupate, as then they will at times roam about. I have by 

 this means bred teinpli freely. Some Lepidopterists use 

 only the roots of the garden parsnip, but they are apt to go 

 very soft ; still they have been found to succeed fairly well, 

 though I think Heracleum sphondyliuni is the best food. 

 Many root feeders may be readily collected when nearly or 

 quite full-fed ; these roots are simply plunged into mould, in 

 boxes, canvas or gauze covered, and you may breed many 

 good things. Thus I have bred a fine lot of the once rare 

 Sesia chrysidiforniis from the roots of common dock and 

 sorrel, collected at Folkestone Warren or at Eastbourne. I 

 have not attempted to describe every possible form of breed- 

 ing cage, but only such as have after over forty years' expe- 

 rience yielded me good results. 



Perhaps, if not trespassing too long on your patience, I 

 may say a word or two on make- shift cages, when we may be 

 away from home, and possibly have turned up some good 

 larvae ; as for example, this year Deilephila galii turned up 



