47 
you any information as to its parasitical enemies in Europe, but I do 
know that the audacious British sparrow alights on the scullery roof 
just outside my sitting-room window, and greedily snaps up the female 
moths which I discharge when I have a superfluity of them. 
It has been suggested by more than one author that the species was 
originally introduced into this country artificially, and the following 
remarks by Wilkes, in the 1st edition of his English Moths and Butterflies 
(1746-60) lend some support to the suggestion. He says: —“ This moth 
is very common in Germany, and was produced [in England pre¬ 
sumably— C.N.~] from a nest of eggs, that were sent to Mr. Peter 
Collinson, who gave them to Charles Lockyer, Esq. He bred moths 
from them.and having turned numbers of them wild (as 
I have been informed) about Ealing, near Brentford in Middlesex, they 
are to be found there, but not anywhere else that I have heard of.” 
However that may be, there does not seem much doubt that it became 
extinct somewhere about 1855, although it is reported to have swarmed 
at Horning Fen in Norfolk about 183U, where it seems to have fed on 
sweet gale (see Ent., vol. xxv., p. 259). All efforts to re-establish it 
appear to have been crowned with failure. 
It is a remarkable coincidence that the other British lepidopteron 
which bore the name dispar is now also extinct in this country ; both 
having been found in the same locality, and both becoming extinct 
within a very few years of each other. 
The eggs of the Gipsy Moth are laid during the months of July, 
August and September in America, and I presume the time is about the 
same wherever the insect occurs. They are usually deposited on the 
trunks or branches of trees and not on the leaves, since they have to 
pass the whiter in the egg state and would be carried away with the fall¬ 
ing leaves, thus making it difficult for the young larvse to obtain food in 
the spring. While the female is depositing her eggs she remains qui¬ 
escent on one spot, no part of the insect moving except the extremity of 
the abdomen. The eggs are about 1 /i6 in. in diameter, and are shaped like 
a rather flat orange. They are laid in large patches of one or more 
layers, each patch containing from 150 to 300 eggs thatched over with a 
kind of fur, which is in reality the dark, velvety scales so conspicuous at 
the end of the abdomen of the female. This furry substance is plucked 
out by means of an apjDaratus specially formed for the purpose, and 
resembling a pair of forceps in miniature. When newly laid, the egg 
is of a pale and somewhat watery chocolate colour; but in a week or 
two this changes to a dark smoky grey, and it remains of this tint 
throughout the winter until spring arrives, when it becomes almost 
black a few days before hatching. 
The hatching of all the eggs in any one batch is not simultaneous, 
which is contrary to the usual rule in such cases, but the young larvae 
continue to come forth, a few at a time, for three or four weeks, in 
fact throughout April. The result of this arrangement is that larvae in 
all stages of growth, pupm, and even imagines are found at the same 
time. 
When first hatched the juvenile larvm are of a light brown colour, 
but they soon become a very dark greyish black, the head being quite 
black and shining. They are then about | in. long, and rather hairy. 
The hairs are black, and spring from small black tubercles; some of 
them are nearly as long as the larva itself. The larva moults, or casts 
