49 
the back are capable of giving a sharp prick when brought into contact 
with the tender parts of the hand. 
The larva attains full growth in about eight weeks after leaving the 
egg; it is a rapid crawler and does not roll into a ring on the approach 
of real or fancied danger. It spins a very rough, open network of silk 
in some convenient corner, or between leaves, and therein becomes a 
pupa. This network in no way hides the enclosed pupa, but is only 
just sufficient to restrain it from rolling about or falling out. 
The pupse of both sexes are of a dark brown colour, and are 
besprinkled with little tufts of short hair of a lighter shade of brown. 
The male pupa is only about half as large as that of the female; it is 
rather squarer at the head and decidedly more pointed towards the tail. 
Both sexes rotate the tail segments very actively when touched. 
The moths appear in July and August, about a month after the 
pupation of the larvse. 
In the early stages of this moth there is not a very striking 
difference between the sexes; but as soon as they arrive at the imago 
stage they present very few points of similarity. The male differs very 
materially from the female in size, colour and shape, as is evident on 
the most cursory glance. The antennae of the male are beautifully 
plumose; those of the female pectinated. The fore-wings of the male 
are of a dark greyish-brown colour (either shade occasionally 
predominating) with darker transverse wavy lines; the hind-wings are 
always of a lighter tint than the fore-wings, and, as a rule, appear to 
be destitute of markings, with the exception of a central dark lunule: 
there is, however, sometimes an indication of a line parallel with the hind 
margin; this is rather more distinct in the female. The fringe is 
alternately light and dark on all the wings. The female agrees with 
the male in the style of the markings, but the ground colour of all the 
wings is creamy-white. Both sexes have a blackish dot and a 
V-shaped mark rather above the middle of the fore-wing. The 
distinctness of the transverse lines varies in both sexes, but especially 
in the female, and a variety of that sex occasionally occurs in which 
the V-shaped mark alone is present. 
I am indebted to Mr. Samuel Stevens of Norwood for the loan of 
2 males and 2 females of the original British race. You will notice 
that the second male is a very strikingly banded variety; otherwise 
there is no particular individuality about our old fen form. 
You will see in my boxes a number of small males very much 
lighter than usual, and having a good deal of buff colour on the fore 
wings ; many of them also have the thorax greyish. They are the 
produce of several generations, and were bred in the first instance from 
ova received from Mr. Bacot, who got them from Mr. Wade-Gery of 
Winchester College. 
It was by means of a score of larvae, which I obtained in 1886 
from Mr. J. Potts of Hull, that I first made acquaintance with the 
species; and the acquaintance had ripened into friendship with suc¬ 
ceeding generations, when I unfortunately lost the race in 1891. 
The male Gipsy moth is extremely excitable, and flies wildly in a 
zigzagging manner during the day in precisely the same way as its 
humbler relative Orgyia antiqua, which, in many ways, it closely re¬ 
sembles. The female, on the contrary, is very lethargic, usually sitting 
quietly within a few inches of the pupa shell from which she has 
G 
