88 Mr. H. T. Stainton on Entomological Difficulties 



the garden of a friend, and, as I was walking among the vines 

 which surround tlie house, I found, to my great delight, that a cer- 

 tain insect had mined these leaves, at first in slender galleries, but 

 afterwards in great blotches. But the most singular thing was that 

 the mined place, at the side where the insect had last inhabited, 

 had an elliptical hole of moderate size. The two skins of the leaf 

 appeared to have been cut away, as though by a knife. I imme- 

 diately thought this must be the work of a larva, which has 

 formed its cocoon with the two pieces of the skin of the leaf, and 

 has afterwards removed from its first place of abode — a sus- 

 picion which I soon confirmed, since, when I looked at the leaves 

 from below, I soon perceived on them, as also on the stems, 

 several oval cocoons, which were nearly the size of the previously 

 observed holes in the leaves. 



*' The way in which these cocoons are suspended deserves to 

 be noticed ; they hang merely by one end, and always with the 

 disc perpendicular to the object to which they are attached. I 

 contented myself for the present with collecting about thirty of 

 these cocoons ; from many had the perfect insects already escaped. 

 In one I found a pupa ; it was amber yellow, the six feet (of the 

 perfect insect) were already distinctly visible. The wing cases were 

 here not protruded in front as in other pupas, but are as long as the 

 body, and lie on it almost like the wings of birds, in such a way 

 that the two ends of the body and the wing cases form, at the 

 hinder end of the pupa, a very perceptible angle. 1 examined 

 several more of these cocoons, in order to convince myself fully 

 of what I had seen, and afterwards replaced thepupse in their co- 

 coons, which I had opened at the side, in order that they might 

 not be too much injured. Among four that I examined, two had 

 lost their yellow colour and become black and white, which led 

 me to think that the perfect insects would soon be out. Ac- 

 cordingly, on the following morning two had already appeared, 

 the remainder came out gradually from day to day, and after 

 nine days I had bred eighteen moths from my thirty cocoons. 

 After examining them with the glass, they appeared to me to 

 belong to the third class of moths, which carry their wings like 

 the wings of birds, but have behind a higher margin on them, 

 which forms, as it were, a cock's tail. They are beautiful crea- 

 tures, of which the feet, head and body are, as it were, silvered. 

 The ground colour of the wings is a beautiful black ; each is 

 adorned with four triangular silver spots, of which two are on the 

 inner margin, two on the costa. 



" One may easily imagine I was not content with this discovery. 



