108 THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
answers admirably, giving to the juveniles 
light and security, and to their owner a 
much better opportunity of watching their 
forms and movements, whilst they are 
small and easily hidden, than any less 
open case can afford. It is also cheap; 
small flower-pots of course are not costly, 
and, as to glass cylinders, I use lamp- 
chimneys of old-fashioned forms, which 
the chandler was glad enough to get off 
his hands at a very low rate. When 
sand, in which to stick the food-plant, 
cannot be easily procured, tine earth will 
answer very w'ell, and — if the remark be 
not thought too obvious — I may hint 
that, next to a growing plant, a young 
shoot on a bit of old wood or stem will 
last fresh longer than anything else: 
however, where possible, I always have 
(instead of leaves or twigs plucked off) a 
small growing plant, ready potted, before 
the larv® are hatched. A little trouble 
spent in picking up, during one’s rambles, 
seedling oaks, birches, thorns, or clean 
healthy plants of bedstraw, plantain, &c., 
will save one a great deal of after-trouble 
in changing food, as well as lessen the 
risk of injuring one’s stock: a growing 
plant, if properly managed and propor- 
tioned to the number of mouths put upon 
it, will last good till most larvm are big 
enough to be easily and safely moved to 
their finishing-cage : this may still be a 
flower-pot, larger of course than the first 
and covered with leno, stretched (for the 
sake of more light and better ventilation) 
domewise over a couple of bent cancs, 
the ends of which are stuck into the earth 
in the pot, and fastened with — not string 
— but an elastic band. Of course cages 
with glass sides would be best for con- 
tinuing one’s observations, but where one 
has a number of species feeding at one 
time, a corresponding number of cages 
would entail a great expense. My 
nursery has, for the most part, been a 
room facing the East, the window being 
kept partially open night and day ; a few 
things I put out-doors, not so much for 
their own health as that of the plants on 
which they were feeding, and which 
would have needed renewal oftener if 
kept in the house. 
Perhaps I ought to say that my ex- 
perience has been chiefly confined to 
Bombyces and Geometrae, and for these 
reasons: — I do not sugar, and I cannot 
induce the few Noctuse that do fall into 
my hands to part with their eggs, whilst 
I find Geometrae to be, in this respect, 
almost as generous as Bombyces. A 
female moth shut up in a pill-box, is 
almost sure to- give you eggs, aud if a 
sprig of the proper food be put in with 
her, she will deposit them on that; you 
have then, on noticing a change in their 
colour, cnly to place sprig and all on the 
growing plant, and the larvae will walk 
on to their pasture, without your having 
to hunt them about with a feather or 
camel’s-hair pencil, neither of which 
perhaps feels quite so soft to their skins 
as it does to our own. When the food 
is unknown I think it is best to allow 
the larvae to be hatched in the pill-box, 
and then give them their choice by 
putting in small bits of six or seven 
different things, such as oak, sallow, 
birch, bedstraw, cbickweed and dandelion 
(the food of allied species in some degree 
guiding one’s selection) ; in a few hours, 
except perhaps in the case of some aristo- 
crats who are squeamishly select, sundry 
little holes and notches will appear in 
the object of their choice, and their 
owner’s feverish anxiety may begin to 
subside. It is a guess of mine that 
most of the unknown larvae feed on low 
plants, for were they to be found on 
shrubs or trees they would have been 
