NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 327 



In order to rear this insect successfully it is clear that the 

 cocoons should be fixed. I therefore venture to suggest that 

 anyone having the opportunity should take a strong flat piece of 

 card; make some little holes in it, and then, by means of 

 Leprieur's gum, used very thick so as not to penetrate the cocoon, 

 secure one side of each cocoon in one of the card hollows, and 

 they will then probably facilitate the exit of the imago. 



As to the order to which the insect belongs, I may remark 

 that, as the pupge inside the cocoons were both mouldy and dirty 

 from exudation, they had to be cleaned, and in order to see some 

 points of the structure I separated the abdomen of one of the 

 pupse from the rest of the body; in doing so I wounded the 

 delicate integument of the wing-sheaths and leg-sheaths, and I 

 find that these contain a profusion of scales of pecuhar form, 

 but no doubt, I think, of a lepidopterous nature. The antennae 

 are very long, with free tips ; and altogether I consider that the 

 insect will prove to be an anomalous lepidopteron, possibly 

 somewhere near to Adela. 



Mr. Kickard informs me that he obtained these cocoons at 

 Shark's Eiver, three miles west of Port Elizabeth. 



Cambridge, Oct. 17th, 1896. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Rearing Acherontia atropos. — In reply to Mr. Walker's query (ante, 

 p. 311) as to rearing this insect, I may say that I believe it to be ex- 

 tremely sensitive during the resting stage underground previously to 

 becoming a pupa, a period which, in the case of the larvse I had, was 

 about three weeks. These larvae did not make cases of a sohd character, 

 but each one, about an inch or two below the surface, reduced the soil 

 to a very nice uniform condition of fineness for an area of a quarter of 

 an inch or more around itself ; this prepared soil was only fastened 

 together so very lightly that a very slight disturbance ruptured it. I 

 wished to examine these specimens to see the condition in the resting 

 stage, and in doing so I broke the earthen case of one, but put it 

 together, as I thought, very nicely ; a deformed pupa was, however, 

 produced. I have no idea how the larva operates on the soil, but the 

 pupa of atropos is excessively active with its abdominal segments, far 

 more so than any pupa of its kind that I know of. The sixth to 

 eighth segments of the pupa are very deeply impressed and ridged on 

 each side, and this condition is correlated to the capacity of movement ; 

 for, though the sculpture I speak of looks quite shapeless, yet when 

 the pupa is fully bent laterally, the largest ridge — close to the stigma 

 — exactly fits to the side of the preceding segment. As to the con- 

 dition in which Mr. Walker should keep his pupae, I presume practical 

 lepidopterists would say, out of doors. — D. Sharp; Cambridge, 

 Sept. 29th, 1896. 



