VOL. XVII. LONDON, ONT., SEPTEMBER, 1885. No. 9 



LARVA OF PARASA CHLORIS, H.-Sch. 



BY G. H. FRENCH, CARBONDALE, ILL. 



Length .50 of an inch, elHptical, as is the usual shape of the Lyma- 

 codes group, nearly .20 of an inch high and about the same width. The 

 dorsum has four lines of purplish black alternating with white, and bor- 

 dered outside with yellowish white or pale yellow. The region of the 

 subdorsal line is a bright vermillion ridge with yellowish white tubercles 

 arising from joints 2, 3, 4, 7, 10 and 12, those on joint 2 moderately 

 short, but those on joints 4 to 12 are nearly one fourth of an inch long ; 

 all of them spiny. There are short bunches of spines on the intervening 

 joints, as it were representatives of missing tubercles. In the subdorsal 

 space are four scarlet lines alternating with lines of yellowish white, the 

 middle yellowish line instead of being continuous, consists of alternate 

 blotches of vermilion and yellowish white. The substigmatal line is ver- 

 milion, bordered as the subdorsal with pale yellow, and this also has its 

 row of yellowish white spiny tubercles, each about one sixteenth of an 

 inch long. Below this is a single dark purple line bordered each side with 

 a lighter shade, and below this a vermilion line or rather a series of tubercles 

 without spines in place of the prolegs. Legs 6, no prolegs, but the under 

 side of the body consisting of a muscular pad upon which the insect 

 glides along instead of walking. Head brown, retractile when at rest into 

 the joint back of it. 



The food plants of this peculiar larva seem to be apple and rose. In 

 1880 one was brought to me on an apple leaf. This one soon died ; but last 

 season, September 18, 1884, another was found on a rose leaf that 

 soon spun its cocoon, but it did not change to a chrysalis till the following 

 spring. As soon as found the larva was placed in a jelly glass, and it 

 spun on the under side of the cover with the cocoon touching the side. 

 When the cover was taken off this broke the cocoon, leaving a small piece 

 attached to the glass. Through this small opening the larva could be 

 seen every time the cover was removed to moisten the contents of the 



