94 HTDROCAMPA NYMPMATA. 



their cocoons above the surface ; perhaps there was 

 not a sufficient quantity of Potamogeton left to satisfy 

 their requirements in spinning themselves up. Reaumur 

 notices — but confesses he cannot explain — the fact 

 that the cases, though constructed entirely under 

 water, are yet themselves quite dry and free from 

 water — diving-bells, in fact ; and he credits the larva 

 with some power of expelling the water after it has 

 completed a case. His description of the colour of 

 the larva seems to refer to its appearance under 

 water, when it shows luminous with a brilliant silvery 

 glitter as it advances the front segments out beyond 

 its case, for he says, "Almost all its body is white, 

 and of a white that must be (called) glittering," 

 though he calls the head brown, and the back of the 

 first two or three segments tinted with brown. 



There is such an artlessness and freshness in 

 Reaumur's writing, that in laying down the book one 

 seems to have been listening to the conversation of a 

 living brother of the net, rather than reading notes 

 set down a century and a half ago ; and from having 

 so recently travelled over the same ground with 

 Gataclysta lemnata and Hydrocampa nymph&ata, I 

 can add my testimony to all that has before been 

 given to the wonderful quickness and truth of his 

 powers of observation. (William Buckler, 20th 

 November, 1875; E.M.M., February, 1876, XII, 213 

 —215.) 



I have once more to express my gratitude to Mr. 

 W. R. Jeffrey, of Ashford, for persevering aid in 

 carrying on my observations on this species, by means 

 of which I am in a position to offer several particu- 

 lars as additions to my former paper in the Ent. Mo. 

 Mag. for February, 1876 (vol. XII, p. 210). 



That paper contained descriptions of the larva, and 

 of its case when made from Potamogeton, and was 

 supplemented on points to which, at that time, my 

 own observations had not extended, by extracts from 

 Reaumur; and in the correspondence to which it 



