242 [April, 



gieh little creature, not inclined to leave the under-side of the leaf 

 where it is hatched, even when the leaf has become dry ; indeed, all 

 the leaves on which the eggs were laid had curled and shrivelled so 

 much when the larvse were hatched, as to make their detection and 

 rescue while alive rather difficult. 



I observed the first three larvfe on 19th of September, one of 

 them already dead, and on the 22nd, eighteen more, with some of 

 them apparently dead or dying. 



A mouth previously I was provided with a very large pot of turf 

 cut from a chalk hill, and amongst grasses, Legiimiiiosa?, and other low 

 plants, some fine shoots of Heliantltemiim vulgare were also growing ; 

 on these last the young larvse were placed ; next morning, about half 

 of them lay dead, and the others had disappeared. But after a day or 

 two I began to detect signs of the survivors, by small flesh-coloured 

 spots appearing on the upper dark green surface of a few of the leaves, 

 these spots gradually increased in size to blotches of irregular figure, 

 and turned of a rusty pale brown colour ; when seen from beneath 

 against the light, they appeared semi-transparent and colourless, and 

 Bometimes then the tiny larva appeared as a dark object against the 

 luminous blotch. By the 20th October, a few leaves had their lower 

 cuticle almost entirely eaten away, and their upper surface turned 

 brown, but so slow was the growth of the larvae, they had only 

 attained one line in length by the 3rd of November, and though they 

 fed a little at intervals, and crept from one part of their food to 

 another to the end of the month, yet they were never seen on any of 

 the other plants around them, but only on the under surface of the 

 leaves of HelianthemuiJi, where they became eventually fixed for 

 hibernation. 



The pot containing the larvae and the various plants was kept 

 entirely uncovered inside a window of western aspect ; the grasses 

 were much grown by the 7th of March, 1878, when I could only see 

 two larvpe on a new shoot of their food, and on the 14th only one, 

 whereupon I began to cut down the grass, a blade at a time, carefully, 

 BO as to lay bare the few new scattered shoots of IleUanthemum, which 

 were from one, to two, or three inches above ground, and very near 

 the margin of the pot ; on the 21st, the second larva was again visible 

 on a little shoot close to the earth, and two more larvse, less advanced, 

 on other small shoots, were seen on April 14th. 



Here it will be proper to state the fact, that after hibernation, 

 neither of the larva? fed at all on any of the mature sprays of the plant, 

 which seemed appai'ciitly healthy and vigorous, but pertinaciously 



