﻿92 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the insect alive, and I have thus been enabled to learn something 

 of it, and I find it so remarkable in several particulars as to 

 much more than justify my curiosity. It is not really closely 

 related to any of our Notodontas, but is nearest to the Ceruras, 

 with a suspicion of true Notodonta (N.ziczac and N. dromedarius) . 

 The egg is large, clay coloured and beautifully zoned, with a dull 

 terra-cotta like surface, apparently free from any structural lines 

 or markings, — really the structure is so much finer than in Cerura, 

 that a much higher power is needed to show it, — of a form not 

 very different from that of C. vinula. The egg of C. erminea is 

 so different from that of vinula, that it is, perhaps, not safe to say 

 that that of H. milhauseri is not also of a Cerura pattern. 



By the way, I was struck with the accurate knowledge which 

 Sepp had, 100 years ago, of Cerura eggs ; describing the brown 

 eggs of vinula and bifida laid in pairs (or more) on the upper 

 sides of the leaves; whilst furcula (and bicuspis) are black, and 

 laid solitarily on the under surface of the leaves. 



The young larva has grand lateral horns in front and a dorsal 

 row ; as he grows older the lateral ones disappear, whilst the 

 dorsal ones remain, though proportionately smaller. I do not 

 propose to describe the larva, which is of course well known, and 

 to which no description without a figure can do justice ; but till I 

 saw it alive I could not understand why any larva should have 

 such remarkable angular outlines, curiously conspicuous corners 

 and humps. What the dark young larva resembles I have not 

 ascertained, but by chance I one day brought in with their food 

 so exact a resemblance of the full-grown larva, that there could 

 not be any doubt as to the meaning of all its curious outlines and 

 markings. This was a curled oak leaf, eaten and abandoned by a 

 Tortrix (viridana ?) larva. 



This particular leaf was in detail exactly imitated by the 

 larva of H. milhauseri. There was a curled portion of leaf with 

 the outline of the body of the larva, the netted green texture of 

 the leaf like the small markings on the surface of the larva, 

 a brown decayed mark or two like the larva has ; the extremity 

 was eaten off on lines following partly a rib, so as to imitate the 

 truncate aspect the larva has, however viewed ; whilst the 

 secondary ribs of the leaf, being eaten between, projected laterally 

 from the roll just like the dorsal spines of the larva, and in about 

 the same size and order ; the tall one in the 5th segment ; 

 the dwindling ones in the 6th to 10th ; and the taller bifid one on 

 the 12th ; this one resembling points from both edges of the leaf. 

 Most curious, perhaps, of all, the little backward projecting 

 points at the tips of the spines (or humps), apparently so super- 

 fluously complicated in the larva, were exactly represented in the 

 leaf; the Tortrix larva, in eating the substance of the leaf 

 between the secondary ribs, had eaten these down to some extent 



