March, 1898.] Webster : Development o? Drasteria erechtea. 27 
NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRASTERIA 
ERECHTEA (Cramer).* 
PLATES IV AND V. 
By F. M. Webster. 
The preparatory stages of this species have been studied by Professor 
French,f and I have no expectation of adding anything to his careful 
and painstaking work. Mr. M. V. SlingerlandJ has also reared the 
species from the egg, but his studies relate more especially to the char¬ 
acters of the adults and those of closely allied species and varieties. My 
own studies were begun with the idea of watching the individual devel¬ 
opment of the young as closely as I was able, gleaning any points re¬ 
garding such development as was possible, and which had not been al¬ 
ready recorded. I can hardly claim that the work was premeditated, 
as, but for what might be termed a bit of carelessness, the study would 
have never been commenced. 
September 24th, I captured a female moth and, killing her as was 
supposed, placed her on the setting board. On the following day it 
was found that she had revived and though unable to release herself, 
had struggled about and completely ruined herself so far as a desirable 
specimen was concerned (which I later had cause to regret), and, in the 
meanwhile, deposited a number of eggs. As she was captured among 
grass and clover, it was probably during the performance of that duty 
that she fell into my hands, and the labor was finished while pinned 
upon the setting board. 
The eggs were of a malachite green, as described by Professor 
French, but I found them somewhat more flattened at the poles than he 
has described, though the drawings made from alcoholic specimens 
hardly represent them as they appear when freshly deposited, the flat¬ 
tening at the poles being closely illustrated by the appearance of the 
upper end in the middle of the three illustrations on Plate IV, the eggs 
from which drawing was made being those deposited by an unmated 
female. 
The eggs were placed near a bunch of grass, transplanted to the 
vivarium, but they hatched while no one was about the insectary to ob- 
*Read before Section “ F,” Zoology, of A.A.A.S., Detroit, Michigan, August 10 
1897. 
fPapilio, Vol. IV, pp. 148-149. 
flnsect Life, Vol. V, pp. 87-88. 
