332 BRITSIH LEPIDOPTERA. 



case, the anal tuft filling up the aperture, and not visible, but when 

 ovipositing the imago is well out of the case, and considerable move- 

 ment of the first two pairs of legs appears to take place. Chapman 

 writes: "The ? of F. casta after emergence sits at the end of her case 

 with the extremity of the abdomen applied to the opening of the pupa- 

 case, into which she is afterwards to place her eggs ; she is, in many 

 respects, so helpless that one jumps to the conclusion that she does so 

 to enable her to keep in touch with it, and not to lose knowledge of 

 where it is. She raises the extremity of the abdomen from this 

 position only for a brief period, some five minutes altogether perhaps, 

 during the visit of the male. There are two reasons, however, that 

 show that the keeping-in-touch idea is probably erroneous, certainly 

 not the whole matter. The dehisced extremity of the pupa-case is a 

 very definite and recognisable structure, with a free aperture that the 

 tactile arrangements of the ovipositor ought easily to recognise, and, 

 more convincing, if the female be removed from her position she gets 

 back to it without, apparently, much difficulty. My own belief is that 

 she sits so closely to prevent the entrance of any parasites or enemies, 

 the terminal wool forming a good chevaux-de-frise against anything from 

 mites upwards. Fume a does not mix much wool with her eggs, but 

 accumulates a good deal about the pupal opening during oviposition, 

 and does a lot of work after, chiefly, apparently with the object of 

 introducing as much as possible of this on the top of the eggs and 

 about the opening, as a fence against marauders. These facilities for 

 oviposition, and the necessity of these special protective devices on the 

 part of the moth, are to be found in the method of dehiscence of the 

 female pupa. The pupa-case is not brought out of the sack, as in 

 Solenobias, nor is it left entirely within it, as in the Psyches, but comes 

 forwards so far as to bring the mesothorax level with the mouth 

 of the sack. At this point the 3rd thoracic and wing-cases 

 remain together, aad form an impediment to the further advance 

 of the pupa, whilst the parts in front are so disposed as to form a 

 ring just outside the opening of the sack, and so, as it were, rivet 

 the pupa-case in that position" {vide, ante, p. 330). Of a large 

 number of males bred, almost all observed emerged between 2.0 p.m.- 

 4.0 p.m., a few rather earlier, but none noticed to do so later. The 

 male is active during the morning and afternoon sunshine, but is only 

 occasionally taken on the wing, although Barrett notes that, after a 

 night's sugaring at West Wickham in June, 1858, he took some 40 

 males that swarmed around him as he lay on the ground between 5.0 a.m. 

 and 6.0 a.m., and suspected tbat they were assembling to a ? close 

 by. We have taken it flying by hedges at 9.0 a.m. in Westcombe Park, 

 whilst Farren notes it as flying in the evening in June, on Wicken Fen. 

 Males began to fly around old birch stumps about 5.0 p.m. on Pilling 

 moss the last week in June, 1865 (Hodgkinson). Flying in afternoon 

 sunshine (4 p.m.), over a damp ditch at Perivale (Montgomery). 

 Hofmann notes the males as being active during the day, flying freely, 

 especially in the afternoon, in woods near Erlangen ; the female remain- 

 ing seated on her case until copulation, after which the eggs are 

 deposited in the empty pupa-skin; the larva? are found on the trunks 

 of deciduous trees, especially hazel and oak. The early habits of this 

 insect are very little known, but Fowler notes that he "has repeatedly 

 found minute cases under moss upon oaks in the New Forest during 



