406 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



of feeding and the large frass betray their presence ; one larva eats so 



much that the plants are often stripped quite bare for a distance of some 



yards, and only the thickest stalks are left standing." Bartel adds 



that the larvae can also be found by night with a lantern. Stephens 



notes, too, that the usual time for the larvae to feed is in the 



evening. Aigner-Abafi says (Illus. Zeits. fur Ent., iv., p. 177) that, 



in Hungary, yellow, green, and dark brown larvae are found at 



the same time on Lycium, that they sit motionless by day, either 



well into the plants or at the foot, as well as on the pendent twigs, 



and that they feed chiefly, but not exclusively, by night. The Sphinx 



attitude is, he says, mostly adopted in the daytime ; he also 



observes that they crawl very slowly when moving for fresh food or for 



shelter. The larvae are, in some years, exceedingly abundant, 



in others entirely absent; the years in which they have been most 



abundant, in Britain, are 1826, 1842, 1846, 1853, 1858, 1865, 1868, 1878, 



1885, 1896 and 1900. Stephens records (Illus. Haust., i., p. 117) how, in 



1826, near Ham, in Essex, one gentleman obtained nearly a bushel 



of pupae in the course of a few weeks from the labourers in the 



potato fields. Forington records 200 pupae, in 1858, at East 



Stockwith, and Hobson some 150 at Selby, in the same year, 



whilst Whittle observes that more than 100 were taken to one 



lepidopterist, near Southend, in the autumn of 1899. Morres states that 



he obtained, in 1878, at Salisbury, no fewer than 122 larvae from a 



potato field of 3 acres, while, in 1896, Brooks notes (Ent., xxix., 



P- 336) that above 200 larvae were sent to him from Long 



Sutton, in Lincolnshire, and that, in 1900, he had over 500 



pupae, from which he bred more than 150 imagines from the same 



place (in lltt.J. Norgate observes (Ent. Rec, ix., p. 23) that he 



once saw, in Norfolk, a potato field, in light sandy soil, surrounded 



by Scotch fir-woods, in which every potato-plant was eaten and nothing 



but short stumps of stalks left, whilst the ground was completely 



covered by the footmarks and frass of the larvae of M. atropos (as 



if a flock of pigmy sheep had been folded there till not a leaf was 



left). In confinement, the larvae require plenty of air, heat and 



light, or they cannot be reared. (Morres suggests a large tea-chest, 



providing plenty of room to hold a sufficiency of potato-haulm 



without touching the sides of the box, as a suitable breeding-cage 



for a fair number of larvae.) The larva has been repeatedly noticed 



as being capable of making a sound with its mouth. Scopoli, in 



1763, writes (Ent. Can?., p. 185): "Larva irritata stridens." This 



sound was also noticed by J. G. Hiibner (Fuessly's Archiv, i., 1, p. 4) 



in 1781, when he wrote, "This larva draws itself together on the 



slightest touch, and makes a rather strong crackling sound, which I 



cannot describe better than by comparing it with the crackling of an 



electric spark." Fuessly, in an editorial note at the end of the article 



(Inc. cit., p. 6), says : " The hissing of this larva, or, as Herr Hiibner 



better expresses it, the crackling, has also been noticed by Scopoli 



and Goeze; according to these entomologists, and according 



to my own experience, not only the black, but also the yellow 



and <rreen, larvae do this." This was later verified by Verloren (Alg. 



Konst en Lctierbode, 1847, 2, p. 147) and numerous English 



observers, and is described by Newman (Ent., ii., p. 282) as 



"resembling the sound resulting from a rapidly continued series 



