1864.] 55 



coQstantly with us, until its final disappearance. It is only in the Fall 

 that it can be seen collected on damp earth by the road-side, in com- 

 panies of hundreds, when as many as twenty can frequently be taken 

 at one sweep of the net, and thousands driven up in a few minutes walk. 



The white variety of the 9 is not very rare in this locality, although 

 recorded as rare by authors, for a year has seldom passed without giv- 

 ing me one or more. In 1858 — a year remarkably prolific in insect 

 life — I took six in a single field, in less than an hour's time. I have 

 in my collection, one, in which the black border of the primaries is 

 without the spots which characterise the ? , — and one in which the 

 secondaries have on their inferior surface, but a single discoidal sil- 

 vered spot. 



Extremely abundant as is this species, I am unacquainted with its 

 larva, but it could no doubt be readily obtained from clover fields, by 

 the aid of a sweeping net. 



Grapta comma, Harris. 

 The larva^ a short time before its final niotling, is whitish, with pale 

 green or blue markings. Subsequent to its molting, the three poste- 

 rior wrinkles of each segment, the lateral flexures, the abdominal spines 

 (except their tips, which are black) and a spot at their base, gradually 

 change to a cream-color, as the larva approaches maturity. The six 

 posterior segments have each a small orange spot above the stigma, — 

 those of the 6th and 11th segments, sometimes quite minute. The dorsal 

 markings in blue or bluish-green are as follows : on the vascular line, a 

 .short line extending backwards from the front of each segment, half- 

 way to the dorsal spine ; on either side, a curved line, commencing 

 anteriorly near the front of the segment, in range with the sub-dorsal 

 .spines, passing with a double flexure, obliquely toward the rear of the 

 dorsal spine, just behind which the two lines are united by a short 

 transverse line ; within these lines, midway between them and the 

 vascular line, are two short dashes on the anterior of the segment, 

 directed obliquely toward the dorsal spine. Head, flesh-color, thickly 

 studded with white spines, the longest of which are black tipped, and 

 terminate in a bristle; the two tubercles, of the color of the head. 

 Stigmata, broadly oval, black, shining under a lens. Legs, bright red; 

 ju'o-legs flesh-color. 



