5292 Insects. 



this rather North for it? Having taken more than I need for my own collection, I 

 shall be happy to supply any collectors in want of it. As I live in the South, any of 

 our northern Lepidoptera will oblige. — G. R. Crotch ; Stoke Court, near Taunton, 

 October 10, 1856. 



Larva of Cerura vinula. — I am not sufficiently acquainted with the litera- 

 ture of Entomology to know whether the structure of the caudal filaments of 

 the puss moth, described by Mr. Gosse in the last number of the 'Zoologist' (Zool. 

 5254), be generally known or not, but I remember to have seen it more than fifty years 

 ago, and many times since : it is, in fact, so familiar to me that T was surprised to 

 find it now described as new. A tremulous motion which I have sometimes seen in 

 this curious organ is not mentioned by Mr. Gosse, but is remarkable. The description 

 given by Mr. Gosse is, like all his observations, very accurate and graphic. — Thomas 

 Bell; September, 1856. 



[Like Mr. Bell, I am perfectly acquainted with the facts noticed by Mr. Gosse, 

 but I do not recollect their being previously noticed in the 'Zoologist,' and I think 

 they cannot fail to please some of its readers. — E. Newman.'] 



Notodonta camelina double-brooded. — I have again, within the last fortnight, bred 

 Notodonta camelina from eggs which I found upon birch the end of May, and am 

 therefore still more confirmed in my belief that the insect is double-brooded. It 

 appears to me that much too narrow a construction is put upon the term " double- 

 brooded" by some of our best entomologists: I cannot admit, because only part 

 of a spring brood of larvae produce moths the same summer, but the remainder 

 remain in pupae till the following spring, that therefore the insect is only single- 

 brooded. It seems to me that if any part of the spring brood of larvae produce moths 

 the same year, in lime enough for the larvae produced from them to be full-fed and 

 spun up before the winter, that insect is most undoubtedly double-brooded. The fact 

 of part, and perhaps the greater portion, of the brood remaining in the pupa till the 

 following spring does not, in my opinion, make the least difference. I can conceive 

 nothing more probable than what Mr. E. Shepherd relates of his brood of fifty 

 N. camelina ; but he must allow me to suggest that, had those dozen moths which 

 emerged in August had the opportunity, they would doubtless have paired and laid 

 eggs, the produce of which would have been full-fed in October or November. 

 I really feel much indebted to Mr. Shepherd for his communication, as I consider it 

 to be a valuable additional corroboration of my double-brooded theory. Mr. S. says 

 that I dare not assert that N. cucullina and carmelita are double-brooded : be is 

 quite right, as it is about the last thing which I should think of doing, and simply 

 for this reason, that both my own experience and that of others has led me to form 

 quite the contrary opinion. About the 9lh of May, 1854, I was fortunate enough to 

 find that a matrimonial alliance had taken place between a pair of N. cucullina and 

 also of N. ziczac in my breeding-box, and on the I lth I had broods of eggs from 

 both. They hatched about the same time, and the larvae were all full-fed and had 

 spun up by the first week in July. The first ziczac came out of the pupa on the 16th 

 of July, and this continued till every moth had emerged. Not a single cucullina 

 appeared till the 1st of May in the following year, about the same time as those which 

 I have been in the habit of rearing from larva taken in the wild state in September and 

 October usually begin to appear. At the same time that I was rearing N. cucullina 

 Mr. S. Stevens was rearing N. carmelita also from the egg, but though he tended 

 them with the utmost care, and his larvae, like mine, were full-fed and had spun up 





