1871.] 53 
far as I can discover, a mistake made in one of Sepp’s plates 109 years 
ago, has been accepted without question, and reproduced in various 
forms up to the present date; at least, he gives figures which corres- 
pond exactly to modern descriptions, and one could not resist the con- 
clusion that it was found easier to copy, than to make original research. 
But, being unwilling to depend on memory alone, I waited till this 
spring to get eggs of both species; and in this I have succeeded, not 
without trouble, for common things somehow grow rare just when you 
want them, and, in fact, I should bave failed, had I not been helped by 
correspondents, whose names are wont to appear in these pages at the 
end of more important announcements than the capture of large or 
small “ tortoise-shells !” 
Polychloros I found on the wing throughout April, but I could not 
induce the female to lay in confinement, and was therefore obliged to 
squeeze the eggs from them after death ; this circumstance prevents me 
from speaking with certainty as to their colour, but not as to their 
form, which is like that of a short, squat barrel, but ribbed with eight 
or nine longitudinal even ridges, which extend over the flattened top, 
but appear to cease on reaching the base; the space between the ribs 
is transversely fluted, but, much more finely than in the egg of urtice, 
although the latter is not half the size; the colour apparently is a dull 
green. The whole batch of eggs appears, from a specimen kindly fur- 
nisbed to me by Mr. Harwood, to be deposited much after the style of 
Clisiocampa neustria, in close, regular order on a twig of elm, aspen, &e. 
Urtice I saw first in March, but after that I saw no more till near 
the end of May, though since then I have occasionally sighted one or 
_ two up to the beginning of July ; the females made no difficulty in de- 
' positing their burden in an irregular mass on the under-side of nettle 
leaves ; the egg is somewhat pouch-shaped, being oblong and fuller at 
the base than above; the base is not flattened, but rounded and smooth, 
and just where it slopes into the sides the ribs (seven, eight, or nine in 
number), commence ; these continue over the top for about half its 
diameter, and increase in prominence as the egg itself diminishes, until 
at last they quite stand out like clear glass beading; the space between 
the ribs is boldly fluted; the colour is a pale yellowish-green. 
The ege figured by Sepp for wrtice is doubtless that of polychloros ; 
whilst that figured by him for polychloros I can refer to no form with 
which I am myself acquainted; I can only guess that it represents a 
somewhat shrivelled ege of wrtice, and that perhaps his microscope was 
to be found fault with more than himself; for, certainly, the majority 
of his figures have not been surpassed for accuracy up to the 
present time. 
Exeter: July 7th, 1871. 
