TRIPH^NA PR0NUBA. 31 



On the 25th August, 1882, I received from Mr. 

 Wm. R. Jeffrey three groups of eggs laid on the upper 

 side of part of an oak leaf, the other parts of the leaf 

 having four or five times as many, and those sent 

 to me numbered about 122. The eggs were laid 

 evenly and close together side by side, and were of 

 an almost white colour when gathered from the tree 

 nearly a week since, and before I received them 

 they had changed to a deep dull pink, and this 

 seemed to deepen a little daily up to the morning of 

 the 30th ; a few hours later they changed to a light 

 violet hue, and in the evening of that day they began 

 to hatch. 



The shell of the egg is globular, having an embossed 

 central ring at top, from which the surface is 

 numerously ribbed, and very dull. 



The newly-hatched larva is apparently a semi-looper, 

 but has sixteen legs, and is of a pinkish-grey colour, 

 apparently transversely banded with darker grey 

 while walking. The head is black, and a narrow 

 blackish plate is on the second segment ; a broad dorsal 

 vessel of dark brownish-grey, minute dark dots with 

 black bristly hairs ; they were placed on oak, but did 

 not eat, and all died in a day or two. On the 28th of 

 September I received about thirty larvae which Mr. 

 Jeffrey had saved from a part of this same brood by 

 feeding them with birch ; some of the larvse were now 

 about four to five lines long, evidently Noctuse, and 

 brownish in colour ; they had completely skeletonised 

 the birch leaves that came with them. On measuring 

 one of them I found it to be just five and a half lines 

 or 10 mm. long, and rather slender for a Noctua ; its 

 ground colour is rather pinkish-brown above, on back 

 and sides finely mottled with paler ; a darker brown 

 dull plate is on the second segment, through which 

 pass the dorsal and subdorsal lines ; the dorsal line is 

 cream colour, very thin, and margined with dark brown 

 beyond the plate ; the subdorsal is a wider line of the 

 same cream colour through the plate, but beyond is 



