1865.] 168 



ordinary shining warty spots black. The head greyish-brown, mottled, and 

 streaked with black. A dark brown shining plate on the back of the second 

 segment, with three paler greyish lines. 



Some of these larv^ presented great resemblance to several of the varieties of 

 Agrotis tritici, but the double white stripe above the feet, and black warty dots, 

 give distinct characters to the larvae of nigricans. — Wm. Buckler, Emsworth. 



Descryption of the larva of Phytometra cenea, with notes on its food. —On July 30th 

 I received a batch of eggs fi-om Dr. Knaggs. These were of the ordinary Noctua 

 form, round, ribbed, and with flat under-side ; in colour they were by that time a 

 dull purplish-brown. On August 5th the larva) began to emerge, little translucent, 

 almost coloui'less loopers to look at, but luckily they did not all come out at once, 

 otherwise I should have had little to say about them ; I tried them with every 

 plant I could think of, but at first with no success, and by far the greater part of 

 them had died of starvation, when luckily it came into my mind that the very last 

 specimen of the moth, which I had captured myself, was flying over or near some 

 plants of milkwort. Poly gala vulgaris : a little bit of this plant therefore was put 

 in amongst the other twigs and leaves, and in a short time, to my great delight, 

 tho 5 surviving larvaa had all found it out, and were eating it very freely. They 

 soon began to show an increase in size, and turned pale green in colour, and al- 

 though looping veiy much, it was easy to see they had two pairs of ventral legs. 

 I noticed that whilst small their tint depended on the part of the plant they ate, 

 the hl'ue flowers (I could find no pink ones) causing them to appear of a dark bluish- 

 green. In the first week of September they attained their full growth, and were 

 then an inch long ; slender if compared with other Noctua larvae, but moderately 

 stout for loopers ; uniform in width when viewed from above, but when seen side- 

 ways, cylindrical in the middle segments, and flatter towards the head and tail ; 

 the skin smooth ; the head round ; legs twelve, the ventral pairs being on segments 

 nine and ten, and rudiments of another pair, too small for use, on the eighth. 



The colour is a velvety full green, scarcely paler on the belly ; the head mottled 

 with faint brown ; a hasty inspection would scarcely detect any lines, but on looking 

 closely, the dorsal vessel appears as a darker green thread, bordered with paler 

 lines, between which and the spiracles come three pale sub-dorsal hues ; the spira- 

 cles yellowish, below them a broader pale line, which on segments ten to thirteen 

 becomes whitish. The segmental folds yellow, the usual dots very small, black, 

 surrounded with Ught rings, and emitting small bristles. 



When full grown, their walk is semi-looping, and they rest extended straight 

 and flat on the stems of their food ; if disturbed they drop ofiE", and fling themselves 

 about angrily. About 10th September they began to contract in length, and to 

 grow pale, and in a day or two spun them.selves up in very tight-fitting httle cocoons 

 of close woven grey silk, wrapped about with some of the leaves and stems of 

 their food. 



I have no doubt that in this case it is no substitute food, but the natural one, 

 which I have been lucky enough to discover. — J. Hellins, October 5th. 



Lex>icloptcrous captures near Hastings. — The only captm-es at sallows worth 

 mentioning wore one T. biundularia, fom* H. croceago, one T. gracilis, and plenty of 

 T. rubricosa. 



