Excerpt from Insecta Transvaaliensia: A Contribution to a Knowledge of the Entomology of South Africa

We have first to deal with a phalanx of large African Moths which have been usually included in one family - Saturniidae; but their life-histories being now better recorded, they are seen to fall into two very distinct divisions or subfamilies. The principal character that divides them is to be found in the method of their transformations, one section spinning a cocoon, the other section pupating beneath the surface of the ground. Other divisional characters are also to be found in the perfect insects, but the pupal arrangements are here considered fundamental. It may be well to review the work of different entomologists who have enabled us by a study of their propositions to more or less adopt their views, and to arrive at what seems a fairly natural arrangement.

The first concise information, or at all events the first published facts with which I am acquainted, relative to the pupation of many of these Moths are attached to the name of the late Philip Crowley, who, in answer to inquiries, received the following information from a Natal correspondent larvw of all our big Moths burrow into the soil to a depth of two or three inches, and there they remain, some for six months, some for ten. The way in which I manage is this: first I search in due season for the caterpillars, which, having found, I remove to bushes and trees as near my residence as possible. I then watch them carefully day by day, until I consider them large enough to remove into my breeding-cages, all of which have at least six inches of good soil at the bottom. When full-fed they burrow, as I have said before, and exactly six weeks after the disappearance of the last one, I dig up all the pupae and lay them carefully side by side upon moss, which is from time to time moistened. Mr. Crowley said he had received from this source the following pupae, which.

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