BREEDING EXOTIC BOMBYCES IN 1893. 283 



during transit) were a number of the moths. I collected the ova, 

 and afterwards was surprised that some of them hatched, and 

 calculation showed that they must have been fertilized while in 

 the post-office. 



P. H. Gosse says, in his ' Monograph of the Atlas Moth 

 {Attacus atlas),' that the longer the larval period is protracted, 

 the weaker the larvse naturally become. This I find is so, and so 

 my larvse must perforce be healthy, as they spun up in much 

 shorter time than they have hitherto done. The most noticeable 

 in this respect was selene, which this season I bred, both in the 

 open air and under cover, on the common willow, and have in the 

 garden one or two in the last age, which emerged July 23rd, forty- 

 three days old. I am leaving these out, but I am afraid, if we 

 get a few cold nights similar to what we had last week, the larvse 

 will die ; in the mornings now they seem very loth to move. 

 Those I bred under cover of this species, also on willow, fed and 

 spun-up in thirty-one to thirty-four days, from hatching of the 

 eggs. The table of moults is as follows : — 



Emerged July 17th. 



Spun up for 1st moult, July 21st ; moulted, „ 23rd. 

 ,, 2nd „ „ 27th; „ „ 29th. 



Two moulted on 28th, after 35 hours' quiescence. 

 Spun up for 3rd moult, July 30th ; moulted, Aug. 1st & 2nd. 



In the 4th age, at 16 days old — 

 Spun up for 4th moult, Aug. 8th to 9th ; moulted, Aug. 11th & 12th. 

 Some others took a week longer than this. 



The earliest larvse commenced to purge on Wednesday, the 

 Ifith, and spun up on Thursday and Friday, the l7th and 18th 

 August, pupation taking place about the 23rd. 



Antherea yama-mai (Japan), fed on oak, spun up in fifty-six 

 days from hatching of the ova, and emergence of the moths took 

 place rather irregularly from thirty-seven days after pupation till 

 now, and even some have yet to emerge. 



In 'The Yama-mai' (1866), by Ward, the larval life is com- 

 puted at sixty-four days ; so mine were a week earlier, — the 

 result, I have little doubt, of the hot season, as I have invariably 

 found larvse eat more in hot days. One of the moths I have had 

 out is of a most delicate yellow, a clear bright mustard-colour 

 above and rosy brown below, with, in some lights, a bluish gloss 

 in the dark portions. 



Amongst other things, Attacus cynthia I also fed upon willow 

 in the open air, and in this species I have an instance of their very 

 polyphagous character. My fellow-entomologist, Mr. Paul Schill, 

 of Didsbury, who has also been breeding a large number of 

 Bombyces in the open air, put a number of larvse of cynthia out 

 on a small hedge of lilac in the grounds of Fa,iroak, and to keep 

 the larvse at the end of the hedge, so as not to wander all over it, 

 a muslin partition was intervened. The lilac had a background 



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