RIVULA SERTCEALIS. / 



laid on Lotus major, a plant he had observed to be 

 plentiful where the parent moth was captured, though 

 she laid one cluster of eggs without attachment to 

 any plant. In the evening of the 29th I found a 

 single larva hatched, and twenty-four more next day, 

 when all were put on the Lotus, and some other 

 different leaves were tried both by Mr. Jeffrey and 

 myself, with increasing anxiety at finding nothing 

 eaten, and the larvsD, one at a time, were beginning 

 to die off in the evening of the 31st, when the last 

 thing I happened to put with them was a piece of the 

 leaf of Phalaris arundinacea. Next morning I was 

 greatly rejoiced to see this bit of coarse grass, when 

 held against the light, showing a number of trans- 

 parent lines of varying lengths, and the fact was 

 immediately communicated to Mr. Jeffrey, and afforded 

 him a clue to the proper food-plant, as he confidently 

 assured me no Phalaris grew where the parent moth 

 was taken, and therefore it could only be a substitute 

 food. In this belief, he accordingly took pains to 

 clear up the point by again visiting the locality, while 

 my eleven surviving larvse were growing, and pre- 

 sently moulting from the 8th to the 12th of August. 



Meanwhile Mr. Jeffrey had captured one or two 

 more female moths, and confined them with three or 

 four species of grass from their locality, and he found 

 Brachypodium sylvaticum to be the one most favoured, 

 of which he kindly gave me abundant evidence on 

 the 9th of August with a blade of this grass, on which 

 were laid, in the most natural manner, about seventy 

 eggs, singly and side by side in scattered groups. 

 To this grass the larvse of the first brood took readily, 

 and left the Phalaris, their second moult occurring on 

 the 16th to the 17th, and third moult 25th to 27th, 

 when apparently they fed no more before they were 

 laid up to hibernate : the later brood were, of course, 

 fed throughout on the Brachypodium, and throve 

 well, moulting also three times, the second moult 

 happening from the 16th to the 19th September, the 



