June, 1896.] DVAR : On THE OrIGIN OF PeRICOPID/E. 71 



warts dusky, those on the purple segments blue-black ; thoracic feet and 

 leg plates black ; hair black, strong and stiff, singly from the warts, 

 spinulated and pointed. The arrangement of the tubercles is normal 

 for the primitive first stage of the Noctuina, (Plate III, fig. 2). 



S/age II. — Head .8 mm. Warts many haired, the hairs black ex- 

 cept a pair of long white ones which overhang the head, arising from 

 the upper wart on joint 3. The warts have a central hair and radiating 

 crown of secondary hairs except iv, which is single haired. Wart vi 

 present, large. On the thorax there are two warts above the stigmatal 

 wart closely approximated. The coloration is as before. 



Stage III. — Head i.i mm. The dark segments of the body are 

 mottled by the general orange tint ; otherwise as before. This differs 

 from the next stage in being more decidedly orange, the blackish shad- 

 ings more livid. 



Stage IV. — Head 1.6 mm. Like the mature larva. 



Stage V. — Head 2.2 mm. No change except in size. 



Stage VI. — Head 2.8 mm. From the width of the head this is an 

 interpolated stage, but it was persistently passed through by all the 

 larvge observed at first. Later some examples of a brood omitted it and 

 in these the width of head in Stage V was about 2.5 mm 



Stage VII. — General appearance beautiful bright crimson and shin- 

 ing violet blue, sparsely hairy. Head and body crimson red, not shin- 

 ing ; warts shining red, certain of them shining violet-blue, the areas 

 around these warts discolored, blackish. Spiracles pale orange. On 

 joints 2 to 4, only the two lowest warts bluish ; on 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11 all 

 the warts blue, the blackish shades predominating subdorsally ; on joints 

 7, 8 and 12 warts iv to vi bluish. This distribution of color is subject 

 to some variation. Hairs sparse, only 8-10 to a wart, stiff, barbuled, 

 rather short, black; from wart i on joint 3 and from i on joint 13 a 

 single stiff white hair, four times as long as any other, projects forward 

 and back, probably serving as a tactile organ. In many instances one 

 or both of the posterior hairs are missing. Warts i to vi and leg-plate 

 normal, iv rather small ; on joint 3, i and iia nearly fused but separable, 

 more remote on 4; Wh rudimentary, a single hair; iii a single hair; 

 iv + v and vi normal warts ; on joint 2, hairs from the anterior and 

 posterior edges of cervical shield, a wart before the spiracle and a sub- 

 ventral wart. Head set?e simple (Plate III, fig. 4); width 3.2 — 3.4 mm. 

 The mature larva is figured on the plate (fig. 3). 



Cocoon. — This can scarcely be called such. It consists of a few 

 threads which serve to entangle the hooks on the head and cremaster. 



