SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 
55 
described by your correspondents in the February number. On the 
loth of March, 1889, I looked at my pupae at ii o’clock a.m. and saw 
a Taniocampa stabilis on the lid, the wings quite undeveloped and very 
small. I looked at it again in the course of the evening, when the 
wings had not altered in the least. I concluded it was a cripple, 
put it in a box and left it till the next morning, when I found the wings 
were perfectly developed. I noticed the same, process of development 
several times with T. cruda, in one instance the under wings never 
developed at all. — John Williams Vaughan, Jun., The Skreen, 
Radnorshire, Erwood R.S.O. 
Temperature versus Heredity in producing variation. — To 
show the amount of cold that pupae can withstand under natural con- 
ditions, and what marvellous vitality they possess, the following 
observations may be interesting. In April, 1890, I took a ? TcBnio- 
cai 7 ipa instabilis at sallow bloom, and noting her to be a very pale 
variety I reserved her for oviposition, and she laid the remainder of her 
eggs. I reared a number of these as far as the pupa stage ; and the 
large garden pot in which the larvae went down was placed out of doors 
in a shady spot with a north-east aspect, about the very coldest place I 
could discover. The pot was exposed to the very severe temperature 
of the recent long frost, and from its position must have frequently 
been subjected to 30° of frost. The earth it contained, with the pupae, 
was frozen hard for over six weeks. About January 23rd, when the 
frost had broken up, I removed the pot indoors and sorted out the 
pupae, of which there were about five dozen, and I was glad to find that 
not one of them had succumbed to the cold. Laid in damp sand in a 
very cold room v/ith eastern aspect, and where no fire is ever lighted, 
these pupae soon began to show signs of life. The first moth was bred 
February 3rd, and to the present date at least forty have emerged. 
Considering the temperature of the room where they were kept, they 
are at least six weeks in advance of their usual time. The moths bred 
follow to a great extent the variation of the parent ? , and I have many 
very lovely pale grey, pinkish grey, and other light forms ; among them, 
of course, are a few of the ordinary type, the dark reddish brown, and 
even these vary in intensity and markings. Not a single black specimen 
has emerged, although it is a very common form here. The larvae vvere 
fed on sallow. Here, at any rate, is a natural experiment which shows 
that heredity beats temperature out of all calculation. If Mr. Merri- 
field’s experiments be correct, my instabilis should be certainly darker 
than usual, or at any rate some part of the brood should be darker, but 
the reverse is the case. This is an extreme case in point of temperature, 
for none of Mr. Merri field’s pupae were ever frozen for six weeks, at 
least as far as I recollect. During the same frost a few larvae of Cidaria 
russata were frozen stiff and hard, but thawed when the frost broke up, 
and are now feeding and thriving on strawberry. In two other pots 
standing beside the one containing the russata larvae are a lot of C. inwia- 
nata ova still unhatched, although laid before the russata ova were 
deposited. — C. Fenn, Lee. February^ 1891. 
Melanism and Temperature (A note on Mr. Fenn’s experiment 
with Taniocampa instabilis). — Mr. Fenn i^Ent. Record., vol. ii., p. 20) 
exposed the pupae of instabilis to the great cold of last winter and bred 
some very pale specimens, and very properly regards the result as 
