18 ACEONYCTA ALNI. 



for some half-hour or so ; possibly also in the twilight 

 of mornings. 



The male soon became shabby, and at length grew 

 weak, though it came up to feed for a week or ten 

 days, then kept down amongst the leaves two or three 

 days, and died, worn almost past recognition. 



The gravid female continued to lay every evening up 

 to the 7th July, when she too was exhausted, and died 

 — after having laid the astonishing number of about 

 315 apparently good eggs. Those on the jam pot, 

 about twenty-five, I kept for myself ; all the others, 

 laid on the leaves or leno, I gave away in batches to 

 twenty-one persons, who had kindly helped me for 

 some years with larval subjects for my pencil. 



The egg of alni is of a waxen whitish colour when 

 first laid, and in a couple of days changes gradually to 

 dingy purplish, with several pale dirty whitish spots 

 on the surface. These, as the egg matures, grow 

 whiter, and the purplish intervals become a reticulation 

 of crimson ; its next change is to grow dark and dingy 

 just a few hours before hatching, and this takes place 

 about the twelfth or fourteenth day after the egg was 

 laid. 



The larva moults four times, and at each moult it 

 devours the cast skin ; should it fail to do this, it 

 dies. 



It will feed on alder, oak, birch, sallow, hawthorn, 

 blackthorn, rose, dogwood, elm. But whatever the 

 food given it at first, it must be continued to the last, 

 as it does not like to change from one kind of food to 

 another; that, at least, is my own experience. And 

 from its hatching up to the very last, it always, when 

 not feeding, reposes with its head and front segments 

 bent round by the side of the body ; indeed, it is very 

 seldom that one finds it stretched out at full length, if 

 not actually walking or feeding. 



When the larva is full-fed the yellow spots lose their 

 brightness, and become in part greenish, and then it 

 requires a piece of touchwood, or some stout pithy 



