7(3 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
its way into the cocoon, which a larva of 
P. Fuliginosa, now dried up, had spun 
shortly before. The Noctidna larva, after 
piercing the cocoon in several places, cut 
a slit in the bottom of it, aud through 
this deliberately lowered poor Fuliginosa 
by the aid of silken cords, and, leaving it 
suspended there, began to spin the 
cocoon again for itself ; and as its pre- 
sent tenement was rather short, it 
lengthened it two or three lines. I 
would be much obliged if any of the cor- 
respondents of the ‘Intelligencer’ could 
inform me if this be an extraordinary 
case, as I have never seen it before. — 
David P. Morison, 49, King Street, 
Perth ; Mag 26, 1857. 
Observations on Lepicloptera. — When 
pupa-hunting on the 2nd of March, I 
found, under the bark of an old willow 
tree, between four and five feet from the 
ground, a pupa of Smerinlhus Tilice : it 
had formed a cocoon of gnawed bark and 
wood, precisely similar to those of A. Psi, 
triclens and megacephala. This pupa, 
which produced a moth a few days since, 
was much smoother than that of S. Tilice 
usually is, and had a most beautiful 
purple tinge. A few days afterwards I 
found two empty pupa-cases of the same 
insect under a piece of bark on an elm, 
about the same height from the ground. 
I was not aware that the larva of S. Tilice 
ever fed upon willow ; I did not know 
till last year that it fed upon birch, but 
in August I took a larva, half fed, upon 
that tree. In the same month I found 
two larva) of S. ocellatus feeding upon 
the white Ontairo poplar: I fancy this is 
a very unusual circumstance, and should 
be very glad to hear of any other ento- 
mologist who has ever taken the larva of 
ocellatus upon any species of poplar. It 
very frequently feeds upon the various 
species of Salix and also upon apple and 
Welch crab, but I never till last year 
found it upon anything else. On the 
22nd of March I took a faded specimen 
of II. miaria on the wall of an out-house 
here : it had evidently hyberuated. I 
was not aware that this insect ever passed 
the winter in the perfect state, though, 
from its late autumnal appearance, it 
might very naturally be expected to do 
so. On the 5th of May I beat seven or 
eight larv® of Petasia cassinea off 
hazel: they were very small, only in their 
second moult ; they almost immediately 
set to work devouring one another “a la 
Trapetzina ,” and there are now only three 
left. Mr. Bernard Smith writes me word 
that out of a whole brood which he is 
rearing from the egg not more than half 
are left, in consequence of their carni- 
vorous propensity ; they seem to drop the 
cannibal, and to entertain a wholesome 
dread of one another when they get about 
half fed. I have not been very fortunate 
with my eggs of N. trepula : more than 
half perished when on the point of 
hatching. Upon opening the eggs I 
found the larvae full formed but dead. 
I cannot account for the reason: I 
thought it might be from my never 
having let them have any sun, but Mr. 
B. Smith, to whom I sent some eggs, 
tells me that he puts his in the sun, but 
with no better result. It is rather curious 
that last year my trepida eggs, laid on 
the 9th of May, hatched May 25tb, 
whilst this year the eggs laid on the 2nd 
of April did not hatch till May 1 1th. 
The young larvae which succeeded in 
making their escape from the egg are 
feeding well. 1 hoped to have supplied 
a good many friends, but I do not know 
what to say about it now. Within the 
last week or ten days I have bred five 
specimens of Eupithecia plumbeolata. 
The larva, which is short and stumpy, 
is bluish green, with longitudinal and 
transverse stripes of a darker colour : it 
feeds on the buds and flowers of Clematis 
vilalba in August. Another Eupithecia 
larva, somewhat resembling in colour 
that of E. linariata, but brighter, also 
feeds upon the flowers of C. vitalba in 
August. I had more than a dozen in 
