Insects. 



6337 



Notes on the Food of Sphinx Convolvuli.— The Editor of the * Zoologist ' says 

 (Zool. 6311), " I agree with Mr. Harding that the fact of an insect settling on the 

 blossoms of a plant proves nothing as to the food of the larva : Sphinx Convolvuli 

 obtained its name from the propensity of the imago to suck the honey of tubular 

 flowers, but the conclusion was a most rash one, and has led hundreds to seek the 

 larva? among the leaves of the bindweed.'' The former statement is certainly true, but 

 the latter is as certainly a curious mistake, which the Editor, as a lover of the truth, 

 will, I am sure, allow me to correct. Roesel, in 1746, figured the larva, pupa and 

 imago (Fas. vii. Class 1, Pap. Noct.) without a name, and says expressly that the larva 

 fed on Convolvulus sepium and arvensis. Linneus, in the 1 Systema Naturae' (1767), 

 quotes Roesel, and describes the insect as " Sphinx Convolvuli," deriving the name, 

 there can be no doubt, from the food of the larva. Sepp again figured the larva in his 

 1 Beschouwing der Wonderen Gods' (Tab. 49), and states that he reared it on the 

 leaves of Convolvulus. Treitschke says he reared numbers on the leaves of Convolvulus 

 arvensis (Schmett. von Europa, S. 139). Duponchel makes a similar statement {Icono- 

 graphie des Chenilles). In the 'Annales de la Societe entomol. Beige,' 1857, p. 40, I 

 find the following under Sphinx Convolvuli, " Chenille en juillet et en aout sur le 

 liseron (Convolvulus arvensis, L.), la belle jour (Mirabilis Jalapa, L.) et quelques 

 especes d'Ipomea cultivees dans les jardins." Lastly, in Stainton's c Manual' vol. i. 

 p. 90, there is the following remark : " Mr. Atkinson informs me that in July, 1838, he 

 found five or six larvae of this insect feeding on a bed of the wild balsam (Impatiens 

 noli-me-langere) a few miles from Dolgellan, in Merionethshire, ou the road to Bala.'' 

 There can, therefore, I think, be no doubt that the name Convolvuli is derived from 

 the food of the larva, although it would seem that sometimes other plants than Con- 

 volvulus are eaten. Several of the authors I have quoted say that the larvae always 

 hide themselves under ground or among leaves on the ground, except when they are 

 feeding, but that occasionally their retreats are discovered by finding the excrement, 

 the pellets of which are very large. — J. W. Douglas ; Lee, December 8, 1858. 



The Reason for the Specific Name of Sphinx Convolvuli. — In a note appended to 

 Mr. Harding's paper " On the food-plant of Polyoinmatus Artaxerxes and P. Agestis" 

 (Zool. 6311), Mr. Newman states that " Sphinx Convolvuli obtained its name from 

 the propensity of the imago to suck the honey of tubular flowers." I should be glad 

 to see the authority for this statement. I suppose Linne gave the name Convolvuli 

 to this hawk-moth, from the food of the larva being Convolvulus, relying on the 

 assertions of previous observers to that effect. Before Linne appeared, Madame 

 Merian figured the larva sitting on Convolvulus arvensis, and wrote that it fed on the 

 root. A. J. Roesel, in 1745, mentions, in his ' Insecten-Belustigung,' that the food of 

 this species consists of the green leaves of the white and red-coloured bindweed, and 

 not of the root, as stated by Madame Merian, and that he fed the caterpillar on the 

 same leaves with success : he adds that the female deposits her eggs singly on the same 

 plant, and that the caterpillar is sometimes found on the great bind weed. — T. Chapman; 

 Glasgow, December 6, 1858. 



[I am extremely pleased that my note has called forth these communications. I 

 have always regarded Madame Merian's statement, that the larva fed on the root of 

 the bindweed, as an error, and the transference of its locus edendi from the root to the 

 leaves a plausible and probable theory, but not an established fact. — E. A T .] 



Sound Produced by the Larva of Acherontia Atropos. — I have read Mr. J. E. 

 Weatherhead's account of the larva of A. Atropos producing a singular sound, which 

 XVII. E 



