The YOUNG NATURALIST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Pabt 108. DECEMBER, 1888. Vol. 9. 



BREEDING REMINISCENSES, 1888. 



By A. E. HALL. 



MY first results were not satisfactory, some hind friend advised me to 

 keep my pupse during the winter in Calais sand, to keep them nice 

 and cool (?) It may keep them cool, but it certainly keeps them dry, very 

 dry in fact, as I subsequently found to my cost. 1 had some 200 pupse 

 undergoing this cooling system, and bred about 60 perfect specimens, 50 

 cripples, and from the remainder, nil, as they were completely dried up. 

 Since then, I have adopted a very simple and successful plan. I rarely dis- 

 turb the pupse from the retreat they have chosen, and use cocoa-nut fibre in 

 place of the- sand, which keeps nicely moist for a long while, if you take a 

 little trouble to occasionally damp it. Some entomologists do not believe in 

 damping pupse, neither do I to a certain extent, but some require it, or else 

 produce crippled specimens or none at all. 



After this somewhat discouraging failure, I turned my attention to breed- 

 ing a tolerably large number of moths from ova, mostly common species, for 

 the purpose of learning their life-histories, and perhaps in the hopes of breed- 

 ing a variety or two afterwards. I cannot let this opportunity slip without 

 thanking my friend, Dr. T. A. Chapman, of Hereford, for his great kindness 

 in so plentifully supplying me with ova of various kinds, and without whose 

 aid I should have done very little breeding, comparatively speaking, this year, 

 and should have missed many pleasant hours in watching the habits of the 

 various larvse. 



The first eggs to hatch were some Crocallis elinguaria, which took place 

 on April 17th. These larvse while young remain during the night suspended 

 by threads from their food-plant, but after the third moult rest in the usual 

 geometer fashion. I have heard that these larvse are cannibals in confine- 

 ment, but were not so with me. They pupated on June 6th and 7th, and 

 the flies emerged the first week in August. 



