HERMINIA DERIVALIS. 13 



one leaf against another by similar means. Following 

 the directions I had received with them, I had them 

 all together with a plentiful supply of fallen oak leaves 

 sewn up in a bag of calico and tied to a branch of a 

 tree three feet from the ground, in which situation 

 they remained nearly two months until threatened 

 with severe frost, and then I brought them indoors 

 and placed them in the window of a cool room, where 

 they remained undisturbed up to the 9th of April, 

 1873, on which day I cut open the bag and found all 

 the larvae alive and well, one or two having just begun 

 to stir from their hibernacula. By the beginning of 

 May most of them had moulted, and from hence- 

 forward fresh supplies of decaying oak leaves from 

 time to time were fully appreciated, great quantities 

 being devoured, and the larvae at the beginning of 

 June were half an inch long. On the 20th of the 

 month Mr. Harwood kindly gave me a further share 

 of his stock, which were in advance of mine, and from 

 the 4th of July they began to pupate ; this change was 

 effected either in corners or between two leaves held 

 together with a few short, stout, silken threads, a 

 slight lining of silk round the interior holding the 

 pupa steady by its tail. The moths appeared between 

 the 15th of July and the 31st of August. 



The egg is globular, with the shell smooth, but 

 slightly reticulated all over in elongated hexagons, its 

 colour whitish but mottled with pale purplish-brown 

 in nearly equal proportions. Just before hatching 

 the colour becomes altogether purplish. 



The full-grown larva is nearly three quarters of an 

 inch in length, thick and fat in proportion, cylindrical, 

 tolerably uniform in bulk, though the two or three 

 hinder segments appear the stoutest, particularly 

 when it is crawling ; the thirteenth segment is tapered 

 behind, and beneath its extremity the small anal pair 

 of legs come very close together ; the ventral legs are 

 short and much beneath the body ; the anterior legs 

 are also small ; the head is globular like others of the 



