90 HYDROCAMPA NYMPMATA. 



larvae there, to tie over a piece of muslin at the top, 

 lest they might wander away. This arrangement proved 

 successful ; the bur-reeds were now in position as they 

 would be naturally growing out of water, and 1 had 

 the great pleasure and relief of seeing, within a minute, 

 the larger larva creep up about an inch or so above 

 the water level, between two pieces of the Sparganium, 

 and immediately begin to spin them together; the 

 smaller larva also soon found out two other pieces 

 suitable, and began to spin them together in the same 

 manner, and at the same distance above the water ; 

 and I watched their proceedings as long as their 

 heads could be seen in motion, sometimes upwards 

 from side to side, and then below in the same way, 

 until the surfaces were closed up entirely. I let them 

 remain until a week had elapsed, when seeing the 

 Sparganium begin to look bad at the bottom, I cut 

 the pieces shorter, and stood them on some dry moss 

 in a pot covered with gauze. 



Both moths were out on the 7th of August, a male 

 and a female; on examining the puparia I found the 

 tissues of the Sparganium had shrank so much that 

 the oval form of the enclosed cocoons stood out in 

 rounded relief on the outer surfaces, while within, the 

 entire space spun over with silk was about one and a 

 quarter inches long by three-eighths wide; and in the 

 middle of this was the cavity of the cocoon, five-eighths 

 long by a quarter of an inch wade, smoothly lined with 

 the same greyish- white silk as the rest; that which 

 was below the cavity was more thickly spun than that 

 above it, but both united the flat surfaces close 

 together. The pupa-skin remained with the head 

 uppermost, and the shrivelled-up larval skin at the 

 lower end of the cavity; the dimensions of the pupa- 

 skin were half an inch in length by nearly three- 

 sixteenths in diameter at the thickest part of the body 

 across the ends of the wing-covers, the abdomen 

 tapering from thence to the anal tip, which is bluntly 

 rounded off without any projecting boss or spike, but 



