A FEW NOTES ON THE LIFE-HISTORY OF CUCULLIA LUCIFUGA. 227 



day the upper surface of the leaf was completely eaten away and the 

 mother was dead, I have, unfortunately, very little time for breeding 

 insects, but as there is plenty of dandelion to be found in our badly 

 weeded garden I decided that I was by duty bound to help these poor 

 hungry orphans out of their difficulties. The little fellows grew 

 rapidly, and, after three days of chipbox existence, I had to hunt up 

 one of my old breeding-boxes to avoid overcrowding. Their 

 larval life lasted only fifteen days and they fed the whole time 

 right royally. The young larva is of a coal-black colour ; its 

 dorsal and spiracular bands are of a pale yellow, thickening at 

 regular intervals into orange-yellow patches ; the orange-yellow patches 

 look as if they had been painted first and then covered up with ^ 

 pale yellow band, rather smudging the original work. On the 

 spiracular bands the orange spotting is only half as thick as on the 

 dorsal, only one spot to each segment ; each segment of the spiracular 

 has also three setiferous tubercles, set like a triangle. Anything more 

 unlike the young larva of this species than the one represented as such 

 by Spuler (Tafel xxxiii., fig. 18b) it is hard to imagine. At the last 

 moult, the larva gets rid of its skin in the usual manner of the 

 Cucullid larvae; the head grows very pale and then transparent, the 

 insect stays motionless for a couple of hours, then the head splits down 

 the centre and the larva worms its way slowly out. The new skin 

 presents exactly the same appearance as the one it has just got rid of, 

 which also closely resembles the preceding skins ; it is naturally 

 diractly after the moult rather paler, the black is palish browny-black, 

 the yellow spiracular and dorsal bands are, however, just the same as 

 before moulting, the head is of a pale auburn. The larva then 

 remains still and after about an hour has got the normal coat of the 

 preceding instar. Then, as a rule, it moves about a bit, but does not 

 eat, and, finally, takes up a fresh position with the segments well 

 lumped up together and the colour of its last coat proceeds very slowly 

 to change. First a little bluish-grey begins to dust itself into the 

 pigment of the spiracular and dorsal bands ; this deepens very slowly, 

 but regularly, the orange-yellow patches take a deeper orange tint and, 

 after about two hours, the larva I specially note has little to show 

 that there had ever been broad yellow bands; where the bands once 

 were is now a trifle paler than the rest of the skin, which is bow coal- 

 black, the orange patches are very bright and the setiferous tubercles 

 are just barely visible. An hour later the transformation is complete, 

 the larva is now of a rich black colour with, from the 1st to the 8th 

 abdominal segments inclusive, a dorsal row of orange spots, two to 

 each segment, and a spiracular row, one to each segment. The first 

 segment (prothorax) has one (two combined) triangular orange blotch 

 spiracularly and three (first two separated only by fold) dorsally and 

 on the second and third segments (meso- and metathorax) there are 

 two orange blotches spiracularly and three dorsally ; on the two last 

 (13th and 14th) segments the dorsal orange blotches run together and 

 form a continuous line. 



One abnormal larva had a curious deformation of the 3rd abdominal 

 segment, on which the dorsal baud was broken and turned oft' at right 

 angles laterally right and left, the bands thrown oft' laterally being of 

 the same dimensions as the normal dorsal band contained by one 

 segment ; these lateral bands in order to find room had pushed back the 



