1903.] 77 



to some dark ones that they had found out of doors. He and Harry brought home 

 a piece of bark having two so hidden in it that I had to look very closely before I 

 could discover anything. The boys were picking the gum which flows from any 

 crack in the mimosa trunk when one of the caterpillars moved ; afterwards they 

 searched and found a good many more. These were like those of mine which had 

 turned brown. After this Arthur took me across to the other garden to see a pet 

 colony of his at the top of a stump of mimosa, which had been lopped off. Here 

 were nearly a dozen in the chinks that the axe had left, and among them one fine 

 green one. By the traces of dirt I judge that they go away to feed at night, but 

 return to the same place for the day, and that they had pretty well grown up there. 

 When the first motli came out I was much disgusted to find that I had been 

 treasuring and feeding up such an enemy, and was much inclined to throw the rest 

 away. However, their ways were curious, so I tried dividing the green from the 

 brown ; but this was of little use, for if I went to the " green " box some would 

 have gone into cocoon, but otliers turned brown, though I never noticed that any 

 turned green again. One day the boys brought in a bit of log about a foot long, 

 which they had chopped off a limb of a tree in the garden, and asked how many 

 caterpillars I could find on it. At first I could see none, but at last we discovered 

 eiffht." 



[The slight description quoted above scarcely gives a sufiicient idea of the 

 beautiful and singular appearance of this fine larva. The figures, of which half a 

 dozen are before me, show sizes varying from 2| to nearly 3 inches in both green 

 and brown forms. The ground colour of one form is wholly green — bright pea- 

 green— liead, body, and prolegs, but the body variegated with numerous irregular, 

 transverse, white blotches, bands or bars, an interrupted white spiracular stripe, and 

 white edging to the rounded face. When at rest it is tolerably plump, but when in 

 motion much extended and more slender ; the fourth, fifth, and sixth segments 

 rather humped on the back, and between the fourth and fifth a wide opening, in 

 which is a broad, brilliant, crimson patch, edged below with black ; the legs also 

 sometimes tinged with the same brilliant crimson. In the other variety the head is 

 dark brown, with a whitish border to the face ; the body umbreous, with paler 

 shades on every segment, and a brownish-white band above the legs following every 

 undulation of the segments throughout ; legs and feet pale brown ; the opening 

 between the fourth and fifth segments either crimson or rich orange ; sometimes a 

 similar orange opening between the fifth and sixth segments ; anal prolegs much 

 extended. It should be distinctly noticed that the crimson dorsal blotch or blotches 

 are entirely covered and concealed when the larva is contracted at rest, and are at 

 all times hidden, or visible in any degree, at the will of the larva, and when the 

 cleft or opening is fully extended, that between the fourth and fifth segments is 

 quite one-half the breadth of one of the segments. It appears to spin up among 

 debris on the ground, but the pupse sent are in slight silken cocoons among the bits 

 of mimosa on which the larvse had fed, a very neat close-fitting chamber being made 

 with the least possible expenditure of silk. The pupa rather elongated, dull pur- 

 plish-brown or liver-colour, the wing- and limb-covers frosted with the most minute 

 and thickly set sculpture of fine dotting, the segments more coarsely covered with 

 small pimple-like points, which cause the whole surface to be dull ; creniaster hardly 

 distinguishable from the anal segment. Those who have been interested in earlier 



