When this subject of the proportional numbers of the sexes of insects was brought before the Entomological Society,[396] it was generally admitted that the males of most Lepidoptera, in the adult or imago state, are caught in greater numbers than the females; but this fact was attributed by various observers to the more retiring habits of the females, and to the males emerging earlier from the cocoon. This latter circumstance is well known to occur with most Lepidoptera, as well as with other insects. So that, as M. Personnat remarks, the males of the domesticated _Bombyx yamamai_, are lost at the beginning of the season, and the females at the end, from the want of mates.[397] I cannot however persuade myself that these causes suffice to explain the great excess of males in the cases, above given, of butterflies which are extremely common in their native countries. Mr. Stainton, who has paid such close attention during many years to the smaller moths, informs me that when he collected them in the imago state, he thought that the males were ten times as numerous as the females, but that since he has reared them on a large scale from the caterpillar state, he is convinced that the females are the most numerous. Several entomologists concur in this view. Mr. Doubleday, however, and some others, take an opposite view, and are convinced that they have reared from the egg and caterpillar states a larger proportion of males than of females.