90 CIDAUIA RETICULATA. 



in the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, vol. XIV, 

 p. 67. In both years Mr. Hodgkinson sent me a 

 couple of larvae and occasional supplies of the food- 

 plant, though, from an unlucky accident during winter, 

 I was unable to produce an imago from the first 

 larva3, but have now been able to breed a specimen 

 on the 9th of this present month of July, 1878. Mr. 

 Hodgkinson's experience is somewhat different, as he 

 tells me he has bred only ten out of quite a hundred 

 larvas. 



With this species there are more than usual difficul- 

 ties to contend with in rearing the larvae at any great 

 distance from the growing food-plant, Impatiens noli- 

 me-tangere, a native of woods bordering Windermere ; 

 for this plant when gathered is quite unsuitable for 

 transporting far, because if the least exposed to air it 

 rapidly shrivels up, or when confined in a tin just 

 as rapidly turns mouldy. Although the larva will, 

 when pressed by hunger, feed on flowers and tender 

 leaves of the common garden balsam, yet it will not 

 thrive unless it has occasionally some of its natural 

 food-plant, the seed-vessels of which it eats out 

 apparently in preference, though it will also eat the 

 leaves if they are in good condition. 



The habit of the larva, like that of many other 

 geometers, is to be perfectly quiescent on the stem 

 of the plant all day, looking rather shorter and 

 stouter than when it wakes up at sunset and feeds, 

 and continues to do so at intervals throughout the 

 night, for then it stretches itself to the full as a very 

 active looper, lively enough. 



When half an inch long the young larva is very 

 slender, and often rests on a stem, with its head and 

 next two segments bent backwards and anterior legs 

 extended free. Its colour at this stage is a tender 

 yellowish-green, more or less tinged with faint 

 brownish-pink and with whitish subdorsal lines. After 

 moulting and during further growth its semi-trans- 

 parent skin indicates very well, day by day, on what 



