268 THE entomologist's record. 



On Alucita (Orneodes) hexadactyla, chiefly in relation to the 

 structure of the Pupa. 



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



This moth hybernates ; it lays its eggs in the spring on the 

 flower-buds of honeysuckle, at a time when the corolla is about a 

 quarter of an inch in length. The eggs are deposited on almost any 

 part of the corolla or on the margin of the calyx ; they are at first 

 whitish, then become yellow, and finally orange in colour ; their 

 length is about •■iH mm., their width -26 mm., and in shape they are 

 cylindrical, but with flattened sides, giving a somewhat brick shape 

 with somewhat truncate rounded ends ; their surface is minutely 

 sculptured, with irregularly raised lines and pits. They are readily 

 seen, and are thus easy to find on the growing heads of flower-buds 

 of the honeysuckle ; often more than one is to be found on a head. 



When the egg hatches, the young larva immediately makes its 

 way through the corolla into the interior of the flower, and seldom 

 wanders far from the egg before doing this ; it eats its way in very 

 deliberately, making a minute hole, and leaving a little frass outside. 

 Both at this stage and at later stages of its career its movements 

 are very slow and deliberate. From this point its food consists 

 chiefly of the pollen of the flowers, but it also eats the filaments of 

 the stamens and the styles of the pistils, and will gnaw the inner 

 surface of the corolla ; from time to time it emerges from one flower, 

 sometimes after having devoured merely its pollen, and enters another 

 by a small round hole. When full-fed it emerges in the same way, 

 and spins a slight but tough cocoon, in which it pupates. I have not 

 at present ascertained where the cocoon is situated in a state of 

 nature, but it is in or on the surface of the earth. 



The young larva is nearly 1 mm. in length, pale in colour, and has 

 fine bristles apparently at the same sites as the tubercles of the full- 

 grown larva, the bristles being nearly two-thirds the diameter of the 

 larva in length. The true legs are long and three-jointed, with 

 terminal claws, and a battledore-shaped appendage of larger propor- 

 tions ; the pro-legs are well developed, but, apparently without hooks. 

 The head has a large, simple eye-spot ;'••' the jaws contain four strong- 

 teeth, of which the second is the largest, and three weaker and 

 shorter ones, one of these being on the posterior, and two on the 

 anterior margin ; the antennte consist of two short thick joints, the 

 latter bearing an inner process with two, and an outer with one hair ; 

 the maxilliiB are large, and besides two small inner processes, have a 

 large outer palpus of two joints, carrying two bristles ; the labium 

 carries a spinneret and two minute bristle-bearing palpi. 



The segments are sub-divided by a pale depressed line a little behind 

 the middle into two sub-segments, of which the posterior carries the 

 posterior trapezoidal tubercle, the anterior, the anterior trapezoidal, the 

 supra-spiracular tubercles and the spiracle. On each sub-segment is a 

 longitudinal depression just above the level of the supra-spiracular 

 tubercle ; there is a marked sub-spiracular flange in which is the 

 sub-spiracular tubercle. 



The full-grown larva is thick and sluggish. The tubercles 



* In many young caterpillars there is a single pigment spot, oi- mass, but 

 several separate lenses. 



