174 SOOPULA FERRUGALIS. 



fifth day, i. e. 29th of October, and Mr. Jeffrey bred 

 one in a cage out of doors on the 9th of September; 

 and the Rev. John Heilins, to whom I had sent two 

 of the larvae reared from eggs, bred one moth on the 

 17th of the month, and the second moth in the first 

 week of January, 1878. 



Whether there are two broods or more of Scopula 

 ferrugalis I am at present unable to say, but that 

 some few are bred late in the year, and probably 

 hibernate till spring, has now become evident. 



The white egg is very small, roundish, flat, and 

 scale-like at first, and most difficult to detect when 

 laid on a white surface, but by the seventh or eighth 

 day the margin becomes rounded or raised, and, like 

 the rest of the upper surface, a little convex ; the 

 shell then is seen to be minutely pitted, and through 

 it the whitish, wax-like, opaque, faint form of the 

 larva, coiled round, can be just discerned ; on the 

 ninth day it shows more distinctly, and on the tenth 

 the head can be plainly seen as a black spot on the 

 margin; the shell is pearly and glistening ; and after 

 this the larva hatches in a few hours. 



When hatched the larva at first is semi-pellucid, 

 whitish, and glistening, with a black head ; it soon 

 begins to feed, and when but a day old shows a dark 

 greenish-grey dorsal line; it eats out little pits and 

 channelled depressions on the under surface of a leaf, 

 and by the third day even pierces quite through it. 

 In about a week, the first moult well over, it is rather 

 broadly and very faintly tinged with greenish on the 

 back, and with a green dorsal line ; head black ; at the 

 end of a fortnight it is a quarter of an inch long, and 

 still having a black head, yet the body begins to show 

 faintly some of the characters which will afterwards 

 mark the adult, such as black specks on either side of 

 the second segment, the growing opacity and white- 

 ness generally under the skin of the back, and the 

 translucent green colour of the dorsal line ; at the 

 next moult, within five more days, the black head- 



