THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 237 



PREPARATORY STAGES OF PYRAMEIS CARVE, Hubner. 



BY HARRISON G. DYAR. 



The eggs are deposited by the butterflies, singly, on the upper surface 

 of the leaves of the food-plant, the Malva. They are nearly cylindrical, 

 but thicker in the middle, the base and top quite flat, and rather abruptly 

 rounded. The longitudinal ribs project beyond the summit ; color green, 

 of a slightly bluer tint that the leaves. Length 7 mm. 



First Larval Stage. — Head, cervical spot, anal plates, and alter- 

 nating row of eight black dots per segment and short hairs, all black. 

 Body dark yellowish. Head without processes, smooth and shiny. The 

 caterpillar spins a web on the surface of the leaf, beneath which it lives 

 and eats the upper portions of the leaf. Length about 2 mm. 



Second Larval Stage. — Head black and hairy. Body pale purplish 

 black ; short spines bearing black hairs, arranged as in the mature larva, 

 black, but the dorsal and sub-dorsal on joints six, eight and ten, yellow. 

 Length 4 mm. 



Third Larval Stage. — As in the preceding stage, but the sides 

 faintly mottled with yellow, and a geminate yellow dorsal stripe. Length 

 8 mm. 



Fourth Larval Stage. — Head slightly cordate, bronzy black, with 

 minute, yellow speckles and black hairs. Body purplish black, with 

 small yellow spots, a geminate dorsal yellow line, irregular and inter- 

 rupted, and a series of irregular supra-stigmatal and sub-stigmated spots. 

 Spines black. Length about 15 mm. 



Fifth Larval Stage. — Mature larva. Quite variable in appearance, 

 but the markings are essentially the same. Head black, covered with 

 many white hairs, and on the vertex about six orange elevated spots 

 bearing black hairs. Body dull greenish and black mottled, varying in 

 intensity of shade from black, through gray, to a dull dirty white, but 

 usually light colored, thus distinguished from its ally, Pyraineis cardiii. 

 On the body are many orange or yellow spots, appearing to be irregularly 

 placed, but they may be arranged as follows : — A row in sub-dorsal space, 

 three contiguous lateral rows (in one example in which the spots were 

 yellow, the central lateral row was orange), and a supra-stigmatal and 

 sub-stigmatal row, all irregular. Spines black or white, or, in some, the 

 anterior ones black, branched, and each tipped by a black hair. The 

 spines are seven per segment on joints five to twelve (L c, dorsal, sub- 

 dorsal, lateral and sub-stigmatal), none on joint two, four on joints three 



