MACROTHYLACIA RUBI. 131 



magis approximates, obsoletis, extrorsum obscurius et magis distincte terminatis, ? ; 

 no! git. al. expans. 44mm. — Isynnerhet halskragen, vinglocken och thorax morkare 

 an hos hufvudformen ; af framvingarnes tvarlinier framsta nastan cndast de morkare 

 och mera skarpt markerade bruna yttre skugglinjerna ; vingarne, isynnerhet de 

 bakre, mer tunnfjalliga an hos hufvudformen. St. Michel (Ehnberg). (Reuter). 



This is treated as a variety by Reuter, and may well be so in its 

 most northern localities, although one suspects that it is usually rather 

 an aberration than a local race. There are 4 very small British 

 examples in the Stephensian collection in the British Museum, 2 

 $ s and 2 $ s, which are referable to this form. Dalglish notes an 

 abnormally small 2 taken at Sandbank, Argyllshire, which has a suffu- 

 sion of rich pink along the costa and round the margins of all the wings. 



Egg-laying. — The eggs are ordinarily laid in a more or less 

 cylindrical group round a stout grass stem, generally a few inches 

 from the base. Egg-clusters found May 30th, 1896, June 8th, 1898, 

 June 17th, 1899, June 17th, 1900, at Reigate (Prideaux); frequently 

 also laid thus upon a heather-twig, often fairly regularly, and reminding 

 one not only of a little group of heather-buds, but also of the 

 egg-laying of Malacosoma. Bacot notes a similarly-laid batch in the 

 British Museum collection; he has also noticed others attached in 

 small irregular masses around stems or grass-culms ; in one batch, 

 laid in an irregular band, the eggs are attached to the culm as 

 well as to each other, but set at various angles, some few having 

 the long axis at right angles to the grass blade, others at various 

 angles, so that the corner between the side and nadir of the egg 

 is touching the culm, one egg being noted as having been 

 laid with the micropyle next the point of attachment, the nadir 

 being outwards and possibly pushed from its original position by 

 the weight of the female's body. The position chosen is exceedingly 

 variable, and the mode of attachment .very irregular and uncertain. 

 Thus Watkins notes finding a batch on a thistle-plant on Pains- 

 wick Hill, June 12th, 1874; Hawes found a batch on a black 

 fence, June 20th, 1885, near Abbott's Wood; Bartlett beat some 

 out of an oak tree at Bristol, these hatched July 2nd, 189 1 ; 

 Burrows found an irregular bunch of eggs on a grass head at 

 Leigh, June 5th, 1894 ; Riding found some laid on a pine trunk 

 about 6ft. above the ground, and discovered some on the tip of 

 a bramble leaf and others on the stalk of a grass ( Anthoxanthum 

 odoratum); Lofthouse discovered eggs on May 28th, 1901, on the 

 bark of a fir-tree near base of trunk, laid close together, near 

 Guisbro' ; Gordon sent us a batch laid on a stone by the side 

 of a small loch at Corsemalzie, and Montgomery found a batch 

 laid on a heather stem when the eggs very much resembled 

 the previous year's inflorescence, and we suspect that on the heaths 

 this is the normal mode of egg-laying ; Turner obtained a cluster of 

 eggs on heather in appearance very similar to a spray of dead flowers ; 

 Fowler states that in the New Forest they are deposited in June in 

 little clusters of 20 or so, on twigs of heather, and that their bluish- 

 grey tint makes them closely resemble pieces of lichen, whilst Barnes 

 observes that they are frequently laid three or four in a bunch at the 

 base of a leafstalk of one of the foodplants. Various batches that he 

 has had have hatched between June 21st (in 1897) and August 1st 

 (in 1899). Harrison obtained a batch laid round and round a stem of 

 J^uncus effusus, and occupying about an inch of the length of the stem. 



