186 [January. 



identity of the little larva he had been previously throwing away : with both of us, 

 therefore, viretata proved double-brooded in confinement ; that it is double-brooded 

 also in nature I obtained evidence on the 8th September, 1875, when a friend, who 

 was with me helping to search for larvae of L. Argiolus, found a very different larva 

 sitting in the midst of a small umbel of blossom-buds of Hedera helix, which was 

 surrounded with a very thin and transparent open meshed web ; several of the buds 

 were eaten out and a few grains of frass were clinging to part of the web. I felt a 

 little puzzled for a few hours about this larva, which then had no marking, and was 

 like the ivy-buds in colour when first found ; but a subsequent examination convinced 

 me it was viretata ; it moulted on the 13th, and continued to feed well on ivy-buds 

 until September 21st, when it burrowed into earth, and the moth, a fine male, 

 appeared early on the morning and was flying round its cage in the afternoon of 

 May 6th, 1876. 



The full-grown larva is about half-an-inch in length, or a trifle more when 

 stretched out, thick and stumpy in aspect, the head fitting partly within the second 

 segment, which is smaller than the third and fourth, they being tumid both above and at 

 the sides ; the last two segments a little taper to the end, which has two minute anal 

 points ; all the segments plump, yet having two or three transverse wrinkles at each 

 end, though not very noticeable till the larva is full-fed ; the minute tubercles warty ; 

 when the larva is at rest, and often while feeding, the head is tucked under the 

 thoracic segments which are arched above, and from them again the back is arched 

 to the end of the tenth segment. Individual examples vary in details of colouring, 

 though the ground colour is always some pale green or tint of greenish : in one 

 variety, the head and thoracic segments are much suffused with pink, and on the 

 fourth segment a lateral wedge-shaped transverse streak of darker pink extends from 

 behind the legs upwards, from thence each segment to the ninth has on the middle 

 of the back a broad trilobed mark of dark pink connected in the short intervals by 

 a stout dorsal line of the same colour ; on the back of the tenth the pink marking is 

 more rudimentary, and on the three posterior segments is little more than a dorsal 

 and imperfect sub-dorsal stout line, which all merge together at the anal tip, along 

 the pale gi-eenish side is a faint and interrupted pinkish line, and on it the small 

 tubercular warts are whitish, elsewhere they are the same colour as the surface 

 whereon they happen to be, and so are not noticeable ; this is the case also with the 

 spiracles. 



A second variety has the ground colour very pale and slightly glaucous in its 

 delicate tint, though strengthened a little in depth anteriorly ; the dorsal mark on 

 the third and fourth segments is a line of purplish-pink which occurs again on the 

 last four, while on each of the intermediate segments is a purplish-pink broad-arrow 

 mark with its point close to the division in front, extending backwards about two- 

 thirds of the length of the segment, the ground colour of the remaining tliird being 

 rather paler than usual : these arrow heads are deepest in colour and rather suffused 

 on the fifth and sixth segments, and each one following is more distinct and paler by 

 degrees ; the sub-dorsal line is of the same pink colour, distinct and continuous 

 throughout. 



A third variety I found in the autumnal larva before mentioned, which, previous 

 to its last moult on September 13th, was of precisely the same tint as the young ivy- 

 bads amongst which it was found, and destitute of any markings ; but afterwards, 



