1880. J 
57 
The virgin beetle lays eggs, as far as I know, in the same numbers, 
and with the same frequency, as the impregnated $ , but these eggs 
aie almost uniformly barren. One instance I have met with of a 
single egg, among several hundreds laid by a $ which I bred myself, 
and kept isolated from her exclusion, going through all the stages of 
development within the shell, till the time for hatching arrived, when 
it perished. I have given the particulars in “ Nature,” vol. xx, p. 430.* 
Milford, Letterkenny, Ireland : 
25 th May , 1880. 
AN ART A MELANOPA AT HOME. 
BY MRS. J. FRASER. 
This pretty little moth abounds on the tops of many of the 
Scottish mountains. In Perthshire I have found it on every Ben 
which I have ascended to the height of two thousand feet and upwards, 
during May and early June. It is not among the lovely mountain 
wild flowers nor yet on the heather that it is found, but when the 
altitude is reached where the heather grows thin and sparse and the 
grey lichen takes its place as a covering to the surface, there Anarta 
melanopa may be seen flying rapidly in the sunshine, or even on sun- 
less days if the air be mild. On at least two mountain tops where 
melano'pa exists in large numbers, the rocks are of a peculiar grey 
colour, which matches perfectly with the upper wing of the insect, and 
in those two localities I observed that it almost invariably alighted 
on the rock and was then all but invisible. Very rarely did it rest on 
the lichen, and although the resemblance in colour of the moth to the 
grey lichen was very great, it was not so perfect as the resemblance 
between the moth and the rocks, the latter thus affording a more 
perfect concealment while at rest. In other localities where the rocks 
are of a colour unlike the upper wing of melanopa , it invariably, as 
far as I could see, settled on the lichen-covered ground, and I did not 
see a single specimen alight on either rock or stone. 
I have never in any locality observed melanopa lower down than 
where the lichen begins to take the place of other plants, and on a 
mountain side in May or early June with a hot sun and a cool fresh 
wind blowing over snowy peaks, it is a gladsome sight to see this 
pretty moth, which, with the ptarmigan, the dotterel, and the mountain 
hare, are almost the only living things to be seen. 
18, Moray Terrace, Edinburgh : 
28th June , 1880. 
* The results of observations in which I am still engaged enable me amply to confirm this 
statement, and to prove that parthenogenesis in this species up to the hatching out of the larvae 
does occasionally occur. — J. A. 0. 
