44 THE entomologist's recoed. 



deposited on the 2nd and 3rd, and on the 13th the larvae emerged ; but 

 after feeding them for ten days on lettuce, which I saw by the frass 

 they were eating all right, I determined to turn them out on the grass 

 at a marked place, and did so. During the winter, however, I found 

 that a party of convicts had been at work near my larvae preserve 

 (which was inside the Verne Citadel) and that the place had been 

 covered by rubbish, and in consequence I only found one larva there. 

 Wishing to know something of their habits, on the i8th Feb., 1890, I 

 began to search the grass in the localities where the imago had been 

 plentiful, and on that evening I found half a dozen, which, to my 

 surprise, were nearly full fed, and on the succeeding evenings I took a 

 few more. Like the imago, they are very lethargic, not falling off 

 their food plant when touched, but requiring considerable persuasion 

 to induce them to quit their hold of the blade of grass on which 

 they may be feeding ; indeed, some held on so tightly that it was 

 necessary to break off the blade of grass in order to take them. I 

 found them generally at the bottom of the slopes, on the tufts of grass 

 overhanging places where the soil had been crumbled away by the 

 action of the weather, and I imagine they would probably select these 

 places, where the ground is loose and friable, in which to pupate. On 

 2ist Feb., 1890, I placed eight of the largest of the larvae in a large 

 glass bottle, with some two inches of sifted earth at the bottom, and 

 saw that they buried themselves entirely in the earth during the day, 

 coming up after dark to feed on the grass which I gave them fresh 

 every day. These eight had all gone down by the loth March, and 

 on the 24th I looked to see how they had pupated and found that 

 they had spun a compact cocoon of silk and earth. I opened one 

 cocoon, but the larva had not then turned. The other larv^ I kept in 

 a large box with a layer of earth at the bottom, and gave them a sod of 

 grass, but, when it was necessary to renew the sod, I found, on breaking 

 up the dry one, that a number of the larvae were hidden in it, and as 

 there was great risk of injuring them in this way. I tried a different 

 plan. I left the second sod undisturbed, and when fresh grass was 

 required just cut a handful close to the roots and scattered it in the 

 box — a fresh handful every day — and after about a week, when there 

 was an accumulation of grass in the box, I cleared it all out, still 

 leaving the sod undisturbed, and started afresh. I find this plan 

 answers very well for grass feeders. 



The following is a description of the larva :— Head light brown, 

 narrower than the second segment, and emitting several slender hairs, 

 with a shining black crescentic mark on each cheek. Body grey, 

 with a brown crescentic plate on the second segment, and pale narrow 

 dorsal and subdorsal stripes. The dorsal area scattered over with 

 minute short hairs, which are especially noticeable on the hinder 

 segments. The paler dorsal stripe is bordered by very slender darker 

 longitudinal lines, and at the junction of the segments (in these 

 darker lines) a pair of black dots are placed opposite each other ; in 

 the centre of each segment a pair of very small, back dots are placed, 

 one on each side of the dorsal line ; the paler subdorsal lines are also 

 bordered with darker lines, and in the upper line which thus borders 

 the subdorsal line is a series of short longitudinal black marks, one on 

 each side of each segment ; these dark lines appear to be cor.nected by 



