136 PHYTOMETRA J3NEA. 



spiracles yellowish, below them a broader pale line, 

 which on segments ten to thirteen becomes whitish. 

 The segmental folds yellow, the usual dots very small, 

 black, surrounded with light rings, and emitting small 

 bristles. 



When full-grown their walk is semi-looping, and 

 they rest extended straight and flat on the stems of 

 their food ; if disturbed they drop off, and fling them- 

 selves about angrily. About September 10th they 

 began to contract in length and to grow pale, and in 

 a day or two spun themselves up in very tight-fitting 

 little cocoons of close- woven grey silk, wrapped about 

 with some of the leaves and stems of their food. 



I have no doubt that in this case it is no substitute 

 food, but the natural one which I have been lucky 

 enough to discover. (John Hellins, October 5th, 1865, 

 E.M.M., December, 1865, II, 163.) 



At p. 163 of the second volume of the ' Ent. Mo. 

 Mag. ' I gave a description of the larva of this species, 

 with some notes on the egg and cocoon, which I wish 

 now to amend and enlarge. 



On June 19th, 1873, I obtained three or four eggs 

 from a moth which I had shut up in a glass cylinder 

 with sprigs of milkwort ; however, she chose to de- 

 posit only on the leno covering. On examining these 

 eggs with an inch object-glass, I found that they did 

 not correspond with the short description I had given 

 in 1865, and fancied I had somehow got hold of 

 another species, but in due time the larva appeared, 

 and looked and behaved so exactly like the former 

 brood, that I became quite satisfied that my puzzle 

 arose from my not having examined the eggs formerly 

 so minutely as I had now done. They had then come 

 to me not long before the hatching of the larvse ; I 

 must have looked at them with a lens of low power, 

 and so missed their true structure. 



I find the egg, then, is of the usual Noctua shape, 

 somewhat flattened, the apex occupied by a small round 

 patch of tiny irregular network; all the rest of the 



