24 
two specimens I have taken at light both behaved in a similar manner, 
so we may safely conclude that this is its usual habit. It enters the 
room slowly, flies up to the ceiling, touches it a few times, and then 
descending obliquely, settles on the wall. From the reports of various 
captures, ophiogramma seems to have been taken in several places 
near London during the past two seasons. It must be fairly plentiful 
in the neighbourhood of its foodplant, as out of some dozens of 
patches of this grass that I have examined this summer, every one 
showed traces of the ravages of the larvae.” 
Thursday, September ijth, 1891.—Exhibits:—Mr. Tutt, several 
beautiful vars. belonging to the Record Exchange Club, including:— 
(1) . Strenia clathrata, belonging to Mr. Sydney Webb, in some of 
which the spaces between the transverse lines were filled in with 
darker so as to develop a banded form, in others the spaces were 
reduced to a minimum and formed fine lines in the centre of the wing. 
(2) . Coremia unidentaria , belonging also to Mr. Sydney Webb, with 
the central band much reduced ; a typical C. unidentaria , bred by Mr. 
Nelson Richardson from eggs laid by a dark red-banded var., a red- 
banded unidentaria bred with typical black-banded specimens from a 
dark red banded var., also part of a brood of C. ferrugata which had 
bred true, with one of the parents. (3). Gracilaria stra?nineella, which 
some of the members of the Exchange Club considered to be a var. of 
G. elongella . (4). A beautiful black var. of T. biundularia captured 
by Captain Robertson in South Wales (the black in this resembles the 
intense black in the Huddersfield Boarmia repandata ), also a var. of 
Agrotis vestigialis , deeply suffused with reddish. (5). Boarmia repan¬ 
data var. conversaria, two forms, one with the ground colour pale grey, 
the other with the ground colour dark grey, but both having the band 
equally distinct. Mr. Clark exhibited Agrotis ashworthii bred from 
larvae taken in Wales. He remarked that these larvae fed entirely on 
the blossoms of the dandelion, concealing themselves by day at the 
roots of the plant. Mr. Battley, Cerura vinula, Nola cucullatella and 
Eupithecia subnotata , together with parasites bred from each. He also 
exhibited a number of cocoons of Eriogaster lanestris , part of which 
had been formed among dead hawthorn leaves and the rest among 
paper shavings, the first being much darker than the others. He stated 
that the silk appeared to be almost white in both cases, but after the 
cocoon was partly formed the larva injected into it a brown liquid, 
which caused the dark colour. Mr. Tutt remarked that he had 
noticed a similar instance of protective coloration in the cocoons of 
Halias chlorana , which almost invariably assumed the colour of the 
surrounding objects, if the larvae had been in the same situation for two 
days before spinning. If, however, they were placed under the different 
conditions immediately before or after they began to form their cocoons, 
they made them to accord with the colouring of the objects from 
which they had been removed. Mr. Quail exhibited life-histories of 
Saturnia carpmi and Cymatophora flavicomis, also a preserved larva of 
Phorodesma smaragdaria and an ichneumoned larva of Cuspidia alni. 
Dr. Buckell, living larvae of Caradrina morpheas, six weeks old. He 
remarked that Newman states that this species u feeds throughout the 
autumn and winter until the following May, when it makes a cell 
rather than a cocoon, just under the surface of the earth, in which it 
