202 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the part affected, but I have since experienced no inclination to cultivate 

 a close acquaintance with this apparently innocent, but really formidable 

 caterpillar. 



After the last larval moult, as most Lepidopterists are aware, the larva 

 of Lagoa operations presents an entirely different appearance from the one 

 above described. The color is no longer white, but a dark gray, with 

 fulvous or ochreous shadings on the dorsum and sides ; the long hairs are 

 replaced by a short and dense coating, resembling long-piled velvet, in 

 which the stinging spines are more concealed than they were under the 

 previous hairy coat. This larva is anomalous in one respect. It has, in 

 addition to the four pairs of well-developed abdominal prolegs, two pairs 

 of tubercles on joints 5 and 10, which are not only used as locomotive 

 organs, but are actually provided with the rudiments of hooks. 



THE PREPARATORY STAGES OF LYCAENA COMYNTAS. 



BY W. H. EDWARDS, COALBURGH ? W. VA. 



Last year I observed a female comyntas depositing eggs upon Desmo- 

 dium Morilandicum Gray, a common and troublesome weed in this region, 

 called " shoestring " by the country people, from its toughness of stem, and 

 bearing a sticking burr in the fall. On 9th July, 1876, I set a female in 

 a bag over a stem of this plant, and several eggs were laid on the tender 

 terminal leaves. Mr. Mead noticed that this butterfly laid also on red 

 clover, and a number of eggs were obtained by the same process, on the 

 13th July, deposited on the young- leaves and on the flowrets of the head. 

 On the 1 2th, the eggs on Dcsmodium hatched ; 15th, one larva passed 1st 

 moult ; 18th, the 2nd moult; 21st, the 3rd moult ; on or about 26th, the 

 4th moult; made chrysalis 31st, and the butterfly emerged August 9th. I 

 raised but one of this brood to maturity, but ten on the clover. The 

 single larva was green in all its stages, and its chrysalis was green, but the 

 larvae on clover were reddish or red throughout, and their chrysalids were 

 sordid white. Whether this difference was owing to the food plants fur- 

 ther experiment must determine. The larvae at first were such minute 



