CAMPTOGRAMMA FLUVIATA. 73 



of May, and 152 days after, on the 21st of October, 

 without forcing, I bred its great-grandchildren, and 

 then did not care to carry the strain further. Out- 

 doors, of course, the character of the season would 

 influence the number of broods, but in favourable 

 times, with an early summer and mild winter, I feel 

 sure there might be five broods ; and in this I am 

 supported by the published notices of captures made 

 from May to January, both months inclusive ; Mr. H. 

 Rogers records the capture of a female at sugar on 

 the 1st of January, 1858 (Entomologist's Weekly 

 Intelligencer, vol. vii, p. 52). In colder seasons there 

 might be no more than three, or even two broods, 

 every stage being greatly delayed by absence of 

 warmth. Thus I have one brood recorded which 

 went through the whole cycle of transformations in 

 twenty-nine days during a hot August, and another in 

 a colder time which took sixty-two days ; whilst the 

 brood which hybernates in the pupa state must, of 

 course, take to its share a much longer period, from 

 October or November till next May or June. 



The larva, when at large, is no doubt polyphagous, 

 and I know it has been found or reared on Senecio 

 vulgaris, Polygonum persicaria, and Agrimonia eupa- 

 toria. Like other geometers that feed on low plants, 

 it is quiet and sluggish in its movements. 



In this neighbourhood (Exeter), with the exception 

 of one specimen beaten out of a hedge near a salt 

 marsh and a few others taken at ivy flowers, the 

 great majority of our captures of the imago have been 

 made at the street gas-lamps. 



The egg presents no striking peculiarity ; it is 

 bluntly oval in outline, flattened ; the shell glistening, 

 and faintly covered with very shallow and irregular 

 reticulations ; in colour very pale yellow, or greenish- 

 yellow, turning smoky just before the exit of the 

 larva. 



The larva is subject to a great range of variation in 

 colour, but there is one variety which certainly out- 



