208 THE entomologist's record, 



eat only the upper cuticle in the same way as they do in the autumn, 

 but in larger patches. I have even seen full-grown larvfe do this. 

 Some will crawl on to a dead stalk or leaf to change their skins, other- 

 wise each appears to remain throughout, on its own original plant. 

 After the last change of skin they are pale green. By the end of April 

 a fev,' were nearly full-grown, but the majority were still less than 

 half-grown. I noticed the first to spin up for pupation on May 10th. 

 On May 18th several had pupated, always head downwards. They 

 usually crawl off the foodplant to pupate. By the end of May nearly 

 all had pupated. The first one emerged on June 2nd, but I had 

 given away nearly all the early pupse. I bred some daily until July 

 6th, when the last one emerged. 



On breeding Phytodecta pallida, L, from the larva. 



By HORACE St. J. K. DONISTHORPE, F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



On June 21st I explored the downs near Chilworth, Mr. Champion 

 having told me I could find I'lnjtodecta pallida, L., there. The beetle 

 was scarce, only five specimens being taken after beating much hazel. 

 I, however, beat a number of phytophagous larvaB from the hazel, which 

 I concluded was that of the beetle. I took home some eighteen larv?e, 

 and fixed them up on hazel branches in a bottle of water buried in 

 sand in a flower-pot with muslin over all. The larvfe fed up quickly, 

 and all pupated by the end of June. They entered the sand to pupate, 

 where they make a small cell. Thirteen perfect specimens and one 

 cripple hatched in the second week in July ; two larvae died, and the 

 remaining two produced dipterous parasites. Mr. Austin tells me the 

 flies are Mciiienia floralia, Fall., which has been recorded as parasitic 

 on Crioceris li-piinctata. The larva and pupa have been described by 

 von Frauenfeld {Verhandl. znol.-hot. Lrex. Wien., xvi., 2, 1872, pp. 389- 

 399), but he does not state whether the larva pupates on the leaves or 

 in the ground. We are now able to state that the latter is the case. 

 The larva and pupa are emerald-green in colour. When ready to 

 pupate, the two larvae that produced the dipterous flies turned brown, 

 and the pupa of th9 dipteron was found inside the larval skin. 



The larva of Phibalapteryx lapidata. 



By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 

 A larva of 1'. lapidata, somewhat shrunk and shrivelled, and some- 

 what darker in tint than some seen recently at a meeting of the 

 South London Entomological Society, has been handed me for 

 observation. The larva, fairly cylindrical, is 12mm. long (a sound 

 larva probably 15mm.) and nearly 2mm. across, only slightly narrower 

 forwards, head l-8mm. across front, transverse to body. Colour, 

 in longitudinal stripes dorsally, pale ochreous and pale fuscous, warm 

 reddish-oehreous, and the dark lines brown rather than fuscous. The 

 black points of the hair-bases are also conspicuous. The dark lines 

 are — a narrow dorsal one, a subdorsal one including tubercles i and ii 

 (ii being very little further out than i), after a rather wider pale line, 

 then a rather wider dark one, with a narrow pale line dividing it into 

 two ; tubercle iii is in the lower dark portion of this, then a pale band 

 with black spiracles, very like, but rather larger than, hair-bases. This 



