November, 1880 .] 
121 
drepana sicula bred from the egg. 
BY WILLIAM H. GRTGO. 
It is with mucli satisfaction I am at last able to record the above 
circumstance, through my having captured a worn ? moth on 4th of 
July, 1879, and her subsequent laying of thirty-nine eggs, attached to 
the edge of a leaf of Tilia parvifolia ; and from these eggs twenty- 
five larvae veere brought successfully through their first moult by 3rd 
of August, when five of them were forwarded to Mr. Buckler, who 
reared three to full growth. 
Hatched on the 17th and 18th of July, the little larvae were at 
first very restless, unceasingly roaming to and fro over the lime leaves 
in the nearly air-tight jam pot I confined them in, where, one by one, 
many succumbed, as if from starvation, and it was not until the third 
.day that I noticed any of the leaves had been attacked, when I was 
pleased to find some of the larvae had commenced eating the upper 
surface close to the edge, and more particularly at the tip of the leaf. 
Once got to settle down to their food quietly like rational beings, 
there was very little more prospecting to be observed, and the 
remaining larvae fed up well : the first one spinning together a leaf for 
pupation on the 27th of August, and the last on 12th of September. 
The pupae were kept out of doors through the winter in an exposed 
situation, open to the north, and the first moth (a male) put in an 
appearance on 23rd of May, 1880,* and the next day three more, others 
followed, and the last on the 1st of June, making altogether sixteen 
specimens bred. In two instances the moths had not been able to 
escape from the cocoons, and the others were dried up. 
Having now got both sexes out together, the next thing was to 
try if some of them w r oukl pair ; the first attempt proved futile, but 
on placing a male and two females together, the desired end was 
attained at 10.30 p.m., and this again with three other females ; one 
pair remaining in cop. forty-eight hours, an instance the more remark- 
able as the female laid only ten eggs, and they proved unfertile ; the 
other pairs had separated between 8 and 9 next morning. 
These females seemed loth to lay, and preferred to rest on the 
sides of the glass cylinder, rather than on the spray of lime it enclosed, 
and for three days scarcely moved, when, on an average, sixty eggs 
each were deposited on the edge of one or two leaves during the dusk 
of the evening without any kind of excitement ; one moth piled hers 
up, as if a more equal distribution of the ova were needless fatigue. 
* My first and earliest capture of specimens of sicula at large, consisted of a much worn pair 
on the 6th of June, 1S74. 
