148 ASPILATES GILVARIA. 
all the earth and plants, sweeping the path clean with 
a soft brush; and bringing all the mixture indoors, I 
spread it thinly over two large newspapers on the 
floor of my room. I next scattered a handful or two 
of blades of grass over the surface, arranged a cordon 
of grass all round the edges, and then left things to 
settledown. Inthe course of the evening, some three 
or four hours after, I got away from the Christmas 
family party, and lhghting a short candle, lay down on 
the floor of my room to examine the blades of grass; 
and in this way, much to my delight, I recovered 
twelve A. gilvaria out of about fifteen, besides all four 
larvee of Gnophos obscurata, which had shared their 
food and fortunes. I now re-planted their food in 
another pot, and turned them on to it again, appa- 
rently none the worse for their adventure. However, 
in the early spring many of them died off, and I was 
afraid I should once more have to record a failure; but, 
fortunately, when the pining sickness had done its 
worst, there remained three larve in good health ; 
these began to feed again, and now chose and finally 
fed up on Veronica serpyllifolia, a plant or two of 
which had by chance grown up in their flower-pot ; 
but for a long time they made little growth, for on 
the 14th of May, 1870, I find it noted that they were 
still very small; after that date the growth was more 
rapid, and in June they moulted; about the end of 
June they moulted again for the last time, and during” 
July fed up to full growth; early in August they 
changed to pups, and the first moth came out on the 
19th of August. 
The egg of A. gilvaria, like those of others of the 
genus, is long brick-shaped, not ribbed, but pitted in 
rows from end to end, the little pits being irregular in 
size; the colour at first yellowish-green, afterwards 
reddish. Ihave notes of two batches, in one of which 
the eggs were deposited touching one another end to 
end in a long string, but in the other somewhat en 
échelon, each ege overlapping about one-third of the 
