AN ATTEMPT TO BREED LEUCANIA ALBIPUNCTA. 165 



occupied about five days (Dec. 14th-19th), and it was at this change 

 that my last larva but one succumbed, and also Mr. Clark's last. 

 Growth in the last skin but one (Dec. 6th-14th) was so rapid that 

 I thought the larva was going to make this the final stage. I do not 

 apj)ear to have measured it on December 14th, but I fancied it would 

 be large enough to produce a moth about the size of Taenioccviijia 

 jndvernlenta, and supposed that through some mismanagement I was 

 going to breed a dwarf. However, as already mentioned, it moulted 

 again, and fed up in its final skin till January 5th, 1897, when it 

 went to earth, having attained a considerable size, proportionally to 

 the pupa which it produced. This pupa was, roughly speaking, about 

 the size, shape and colour of an ordinary Hoporina eroceaqo. Of 

 course, this is only a rough superficial comparison, and I do not for 

 a moment wish to suggest any structural relationship ; I know prac- 

 tically nothing of the normal Leucanid pupa. 



In its last skin the larva was a more striking creature in appear- 

 ance, through the greater intensification of the markings ; but it was 

 nothing like the gay figure which Owen Wilson gives in his " Larvfe 

 of British Lepidoptera." Old Brahm's figure, executed nearly 100 

 years earlier, is far better in shape, colour, etc., albeit rather rough ; 

 however, Brahm says he has found the larvae very variable, and we 

 must suppose that Owen Wilson's figure (which we learn from his 

 introduction was from Nature) represented a very brightly-coloured 

 specimen ; yet he might surely have done better justice to the taper- 

 ing form. His (learn'ptinn seems accurate ; that by Brahm is really 

 first-rate, and if his work were in the hands of the pre.sent generation 

 of entomologists, I would not waste space in re-describing the full- 

 grown larva. However, as probably none of my readers have seen 

 his description, I append the following notes, which I made on 

 December 26th : — " Now measures li inch when drawn up at rest, 

 just upon 1| inch when stretched in crawling. Tolerably stout in 

 proportion, tapering slightly to anal extremity. Head, somewhat 

 shiny horn-colour, with two indistinct grey lines down the face ; 

 scutellum intermediate in colour between the head and the dorsum 

 generally, slightly shiny ; traversed by three yellowish-white stripes, 

 being the commencement (differently coloured) of the dorsal line and 

 the sub-dorsal. Body, a sort of wainscot-brown, more inclining to 

 dirty flesh-coloured laterally and ventrally, leaving the dorsal area 

 clearer yellowish-wainscot colour. The line or band below the 

 spiracles is also fairly well defined, being paler than the two areas 

 which it separates ; it is decidedly waved, rising to the segment- 

 incisions, and falling below the deep black (but small) spiracular 

 dots ; the skin on this lateral line is somewhat loose-looking and 

 rugose, especially on the final three segments. The dorsal area is 

 really of two shades, clean yellowish against the sub-dorsal line, more 

 fleshy agamst the dorsal. The dorsal line (as remarked in earlier 

 skins) is double, blackish (very fine), enclosing a fine whitish line ; 

 the two blackish lines approximate very slightly in the centre of each 

 segment, diverging a little at the boundaries. The lateral area, above 

 the spiracles, is likewise not really uniform in colour, but the lower 

 half is more fleshy, the upper half more yellowish ; the two bands 

 faintly separated by an indistinct grey line. The sub-dorsal line is 

 slender, white, bounded laterally by a very slender, brownish line, 



