CALLOPHRYS RUBI. 101 



little apart, which had, no doubt, grown since the egg was laid, and 

 were then, one feels satisfied, in contact. A scrap of dead material 

 still adhered to the eggshell ; this had no doubt lodged between the 

 touching flower-buds at the time of oviposition. Chapman further 

 observes that the eggs turn greyish in colour for at least two days 

 before hatching. Hellins notes (Ent. Mo. Mag., vii., p. 232) that eggs 

 were deposited in confinement on twigs of Cytisus scoparins, on June 

 17th, 1870, and the larvae hatched out on June 24th. Head says (in 

 litt.) that, on the Scarborough moors, the eggs appear to be laid 

 singly, and always close down between the young leaf-stalk and a stem 

 of Vaccinium myrtillus, and not always on the top shoots. He ob- 

 serves that the ? s have a habit of walking down the main stem of 

 the bilberry and feeling about with their ovipositors for a crevice in 

 which to lay an egg, and usually lay one in the joint of each shoot. The 

 eggs, he adds, hatch in from six to fourteen days, according to the state of 

 the weather. Lowe notes (in litt.) that, in May, 1903, in Guernsey, he 

 watched a 2 eggl a y m g on the young soft shoots of the common furze, 

 JJlex europaeiis ; she did not seem to deposit any eggs on the flowers 

 or flower- calyces ; the eggs were laid singly, and the 2 was very 

 decisive and unhesitating in her movements. Head further states that, 

 in confinement, the $ will lay her eggs freely on the young leaves of 

 Laburnum. Mina-Palumbo says that, in Sicily, though common on 

 Erica arbor ea, this species prefers to oviposit on Ilex aquifolium bushes. 

 Ovum. — The egg is 0'7mm. in diameter, and 0-4mm. high, bun- 

 shaped, flattened below, and, to some extent, flattened on top. The sculp- 

 turing is most developed on the sides, but extends also in a weak manner 

 over the base ; on the top it becomes smaller and flatter. It consists 

 of a network in triangles with knobs at the angles ; according to the 

 exigencies of a curved surface, the triangles are not always equilateral, 

 and even a quadrangle occasionally occurs. The material of which 

 this consists is laid on the outside of the egg proper, and both it and the 

 eggshell are colourless and more or less transparent, the colour of the 

 egg being entirely due to contents. The structure of this ornamenta- 

 tion is difficult to describe. The sides of the triangle are about 

 - 026mm. or 0'028mm. in length ; suppose then that short pillars are 

 erected at this distance apart all over the sculptured surface, and, on 

 top of each of these, a ball, or not very regularly modelled lump, about 

 O'Olmm. in diameter, and more than twice the thickness of the pillar 

 just behind, is placed. From just below this neck, from each 

 pillar to each of its nearest neighbours, a cord, about 0'006mm. in 

 diameter, is hung, so that it falls in a curve between them ; again, 

 from the sides of these cords, the enclosed triangle is filled with a 

 surface curved as if hung from them. Let all these cords and 

 hollowed surfaces be solid down to the eggshell, the centres of the 

 hollows being, however, close to, or actually, the shell, and you have a 

 fair idea of the ornamentation (Chapman, April 17th, 1906). The egg 

 is roughly circular in outline, and spheroidal in shape, being depressed 

 or flattened at both poles ; the surface is covered with a rather coarse 

 network that is roughly polygonal, the polygons having from five to 

 nine sides, although the greater number are hexagonal. The micro- 

 pylar area forms a comparatively large depression at the apex, the 

 sides of the depression being much more finely reticulated than the 

 remainder of the egg, but still maintaining its polygonal character. 

 The reticulation, although irregular, suggests a certain amount of 



