AGLOSSA PINGUINALTS. 29 



species of Lepidoptera, all mixed up together with 

 much chaffy and earthy matter. 



Into this mixture the active little creatures at once 

 went down out of sight, and did not show themselves 

 at all while they remained in the box for twelve days ; 

 I then began to look for them, and found some small 

 earthy particles of the rubbish adhering slightly to 

 the bottom of the box, and under these I saw three 

 larvoe, and a fourth lying under a morsel of old straw ; 

 after this I removed all into a pot provided with more 

 of the sweepings. Later still I began to realise the 

 hazard of satisfying my curiosity while inspecting 

 their progress from time to time, as I was obliged to 

 turn them out of their tubular dwellings, which were 

 of rather tender construction ; and for some time 

 this work of danger resulted in casualties, until 

 after fatally injuring several larvae I was impelled to 

 invoke help from Mr. Fletcher, between whom and 

 myself many communications had passed at intervals 

 concerning these larvse, and on the 24th of September 

 he most kindly sent me six of part of the same brood 

 he had been rearing for himself. And of these again, 

 after they had wintered safely in a more or less 

 torpid condition, I was unfortunate enough to injure 

 several in the following spring, and in April found I 

 had only two survivors ; one of these fully grown, 

 after abandoning its tube, crawled about and remained 

 exposed on the side of the pot for a day or two, but 

 finally retired to the bottom, on which it spun up in a 

 firmly fixed cocoon on the last day of April, and I 

 bred the moth from it on the 14th of June ; the 

 second was kept in another pot, wherein it eventually 

 during May spun its cocoon and changed to a pupa, 

 of which I secured a figure and description before the 

 imago came forth on the 8th of July. 



Meanwhile I resolved to make acquaintance with 

 the larvae in their native haunts, and early in May 

 sought for them in a farm stable, and there, by help 

 from a small boy, on several occasions during that 



