8404 



Insects. 



existence for so many years ? It is, at any rate, a bold assertion to make that they 

 constitute but a single species, and one that the young naturalist should if possible 

 avoid ; it is more consistent with probability, and much more simple, to accept them 

 as two species, admitting their distinctive characters to be still imperfectly determined, 

 or perhaps imperfectly known. Ino Geryon has been found on the ' Gahns ' * of 

 Lower Austria, and I believe also near Digue." So far Dr. Staudinger. I may add 

 my own opinion that Ino Slatices and I. Geryon are perfectly distinct species. I be- 

 lieve that all the three British species of Ino occur in company in Sussex, more es- 

 pecially on the south coast, and I shall feel extremely obliged for a series of 

 specimens in order that my Friday visitors may have ample means of examining and 

 comparing them. If some of our Sussex entomologists would endeavour to obtain 

 and describe the larva?, and rear the perfect insect, that would add a valuable page to 

 the Life-histories of British Lepidoptera. Since the above was written, the Rev. E. 

 Horton, of Wick, near Worcester, has looked over my collection, and informs me that 

 the insect I have called Ino Geryon is abundant on the Malvern Hills, and that he 

 has always regarded it as a small or starved variety of Ino Statices. — Edward Newman. 



Description of the Larva of Amphydasis prodromaria. — Having had a large brood 

 of Amphydasis prodromaria to bring up this year, I have made a few observations on 

 that species which may be interesting to some of your readers. My breeding-cages 

 are kept out of doors, so that the times will be those of nature. I had two impreg- 

 nated females. The first left the male March 14th, and I looked in vain for eggs till 

 March 25th, when 1 chloroformed her in fine condition, and afterwards held a post- 

 mortem, the result of which was the discovery of a tolerable quantity of eggs in her 

 abdomen. The second parted from her spouse March 28th, but I saw no eggs till 

 April 3rd, when, on a minute examination of the breeding-cage, I found a great 

 number between the wire and some leno which I bad gummed on outside. There were 

 evidently two batches, so that the first female had done her duty, and they were so 

 cleverly concealed that it required the closest inspection to detect them. I should con- 

 clude from this that, in a state of nature, the female, by means of her ovipositor, in- 

 serts her eggs in the crevices of the bark, or under the lichen with which it is covered. 

 I had put several budded twigs of oak in the cage, but not an egg was laid on them, 

 probably because they were too smooth. The eggs (small for the size of the moth) 

 are greenish, with a hyaline appearance after a few days, oval, not flattened, appearing 

 under a moderate glass to be very finely chased. Before hatching, which they began 

 to do May 2nd, they turn of a purplish hue. The larva is at first olive with lighter 

 spiracular line. Head light brown. After the first moult smoky ; head brown mottled. 

 Anal claspers brown. After the second moult reddish brown (some much redder than 

 others); dorsal line a chain of dark brown markings, with ashy dashes on each side 

 at intersections ; suffused with ashy on the 8th and 9th segments. Head rather bifid. 

 Two lateral tubercles on the 8th segment; two larger lateral tubercles on the 9th ; a 

 slightly-raised ridge on the 12ih ; slight ventral projections on the 8th, 9th and 10th 

 segments. After the last moult, more suffused with ashy. Head reddish brown. Two 

 small lateral tubercles on the 5th segment; two ventral tubercles on the 7th ; two 

 small dorsal tubercles instead of ridge on the 12th. The rest as before. I divided 

 my brood into two parts, feeding one on oak, the other on birch, on which they thrived 



* Will some German scholar kindly give me the meaning of this word. — E. N. 



