62 ME. NEWPORT ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



victim that may chance to be crawling near them, even though 

 they may have fed plentifully on their prey but a few minutes 

 before. Having killed a snail, they seldom leave it, except for a 

 few minutes, until the whole of the body is devoured. They will 

 remain for many hours with their heads buried in the body of the 

 snail, gorging to the utmost, and plunging their small heads and 

 erected mandibles into its viscera, which they continue to pierce 

 and exhaust until all the juices of the body are drained. I have 

 sometimes seen four or five larvse crouched one upon the other, in 

 a snail-shell, feasting and gorging upon their prey. In this latter 

 respect they somewhat resemble in habit, as they do in general 

 appearance and colour, the voracious larva of the Lady-bird {Coc- 

 cinella) which preys upon Aphides. The glowworm larvae will 

 pertinaciously continue to attack and devour the snails until they 

 are so completely gorged, that they can move but with difficulty, 

 and yet at the expiration of half, and sometimes even but a 

 quarter of an hour, during which they are motionless, as in sleep, 

 or as if fatigued, they will return to their feast as voraciously as 

 before. 



Cleanliness of the Larva. 



Although the larva manifests such an avidity for food, and con- 

 tinues to gorge itself so long and so pertinaciously, with its head 

 thrust into the snail, and its body buried in the shell amidst the 

 decomposing corporeal elements, it is nevertheless* very diligent to 

 cleanse itself of the slime. M. Maille (loc. cit.) first mentioned 

 this circumstance, and pointed out the organs which it uses for 

 that purpose. Degeer, however, long ago referred to the structure, 

 but did not observe its use. 



After the larva has finished its repast, it leaves the snail, as I 

 have seen, retreats a short distance beneath the roots of grass, and 

 begins to cleanse itself from the adherent slime. This process is 

 effected, as mentioned by Maille, by means of the anal prolegs, 

 protruded from the thirteenth segment, which I shall more parti- 

 cularly describe hereafter. With this apparatus, which the author 

 referred to says is " une espece de houppe nerveuse composee de 

 7 ou 8 rayons blancs" (Bulletin des Sciences Nat. p. 297), but 

 which consists in reality of a number of fleshy radiations, mus- 

 cular, not nervous, and capable of being greatly elongated, the 

 larva grasps its mandibles, and wipes them and every part of its 

 body to which any slime adheres, using its organ in the manner of 

 a sponge or tail to wipe away the offensive matter. When the 



