150 [December, 



I found the full grown larvae feeding not uncommonly on the seeds of 

 this plant. It was necessary to open the vessels to find them, as the 

 larva? gave no outward indication of their presence, excepting in the 

 rare instances, when a larva, having exhausted one vessel, had entered 

 a second, in which ease the point of entrance, though closed as it always 

 was with silk, was easy to see. Usually it finds food enough in a 

 single vessel, and makes no visible communication with the outside, 

 till it becomes full-fed and eats its way out to go in search of winter 

 quarters. My own larvae were supplied for this purpose with cork and 

 dead bramble-shoots, into which they readily burrowed, or rather, I 

 should say, ate, for they swallowed the removed material, and did not 

 simply turn it out, as most larvae do under similar circumstances. 

 Probably this is merely an expeditious way of getting rid of the refuse 

 material, for it can scarcely be that it is swallowed as food, since the 

 chamber is completed in a very few days and then all production of 

 frass ceases. At any rate, it is a curious feature in its (economy, and 

 I can call to mind no other larva that acts in the same way. 



The markings of the larva are unusually distinct and abundant 

 for an internal feeder. The colour of the body is white ; that of the 

 head pale brown. There is a black plate on the 2nd segment, and 

 another on the 13th. The dorsal and spiracvilar lines are pale rust- 

 colour, and well marked. The usual sj)ots are also of the same colour, 

 and distinct. There is no sub-dorsal line, but below the spiracular 

 line are two other rust-colour lines, the lower one running along the 

 base of the legs and claspers. Both these lines are inteiTupted, and 

 are also jialer in tint than the dorsal and spiracular ones. The larva, 

 when full-fed, eats, as has been said, into some soft woody substance, 

 and there remains till the sjjring, when it assumes the pupal-state. 



Tarrington, Herefordshire : 



2Qth October, 1878. 



Auttimnal pupation of Abraxas grossulariata. — As I have never seen any re- 

 ference to the above subject in any books which have come under my notice, I 

 venture to forward you a few remarks, which you will perhaps think interesting 

 enough to publish. In November, last year, I found, in a friend's garden near Lon- 

 don, about seven dozen pupae of this species on some old gooseberry and currant 

 bushes. I at first thought they were old and empty, but, on pulling one or two off, 

 found them fresh and alive. I tried to rear them, but unsuccessfully. In October 

 this year I found, in the same garden, altogether about forty dozen, and also the 

 larvae in all sizes, from a quarter of an inch in length to some actually spinning up. 

 The imago has been reared freely from the pupoe taken this year. — H. Silcock, 22, 

 Eandolph Street, Camden Town, N.W., and West Loudon Entomological Society : 

 November, 1878. 



