SILK-PRODUCING LBPIDOPTERA. 355 



emerged on Sept. 29th, and three tyrrliea from the 1st to 3rd of 

 October ; afterwards a male on the 5th, and another on the 19th 

 of the same month, and that was the last. The eggs obtained 

 from the pau'ing of Sept. 14th and 15th began to hatch on 

 Nov. 3rd, and as a matter of course their existence was of very 

 short duration. 



BoMBYX CYTHERCEA (dione). On May 8th, 1888, I received a 

 few small branches of a shrub with thick leaves, growing in the 

 environs of Grahamstown, Cape Colony. On these leaves were 

 fixed large white and reddish brown eggs. They were cytheroea 

 eggs, and their number was ninety-seven. Sent from Grahams- 

 town on April 16th, they reached me after a voyage of twenty- 

 two days only. The hatching of fifty-seven larvae took place on 

 the day the box arrived (which was May 8th) and on the follow- 

 ing day. The forty remaining ova, which were fixed to the same 

 leaf, all hatched on the morning of May 18th. 



The names of the food-plants for this species, which were 

 sent by my correspondent, were white heath. Acacia mimosa, and 

 wild currant, plants which I could not get. In a letter received 

 much later on, I was informed that the larvae could also be 

 reared on willow. I offered them birch, oak, and plum, which 

 they tried to eat, but every day I had to register some deaths. 

 Whether the larva of this species be naturally slow in its deve- 

 lopment or the food did not suit it, the second stage commenced 

 only on June 5th, eighteen days after the hatching, and the third 

 stage on June 26th. The larvae kept on dying every day till the 

 end of July, when only three were left, and the last one died in 

 August. This was a great disappointment, for the larvae (which 

 live in families) were large and very lively, and they bad eaten 

 the greater part of the shell of the egg before making their exit 

 out of it. In the first stage the smaller larvae are red, the head 

 is large, shining, and black ; the legs also are black. The larger 

 ones (in all probability, those which are to produce the female 

 moths) have a black ring round each segment ; this ring is 

 formed by a number of small black tubercles nearly touching 

 one another. This ring of small tubercles was the only difference 

 I observed ; otherwise they were like the smaller larvae. In the 

 second stage the larvae are of a fawn colour, with black tubercles 

 covered with white thin hairs ; the base of the tubercles is 

 yellowish white, and the head black. 



The following is a list of African Bombyces, including three 

 already mentioned : — 



BoMBYx BAUHiNiiE. Very much recommended as a silk 

 producer. 



BoMBYX ANNULiPES, Boisduval. 



Saturnia cajini, Guerin-Meneville. 



BoMBYx RADAMA, Boisduval. A species common in Mada- 



