102 [October, 



THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF EMMELESIA AFFINITATA. 

 BY WILLIAM BUCKLER. 



Por many years a number of friends tried to send me tlie long 

 desired larva of Emmelesia affinitata, which I have been unable to 

 meet with here, yet their several consignments of seed-eating Greometers 

 invariably proved to be its more common congener decolorata, until 

 Mr. C. Gr. Barrett turned his attention to this somewhat local species, 

 and it is entirely owing to his very kind efforts, sustained for two or 

 three seasons, that my desire has been accomplished. 



Of this species Mr. Barrett first sent me four eggs in 1876, at 

 beginning of July, but on that occasion, for want of the proper food- 

 plant, the young larvae were not reared much beyond their second 

 moult, on seeds of Lyclinis vespertinn, a substitute food ; but in 1878, 

 Mr. Barrett found, and sent me from Pembroke, two young larvse 

 on July 27th, feeding in seed-capsules of Lijclinis diurna, one un- 

 fortunately injured died next day, but was replaced by another on 

 2nd of August, and supplemented by two more on the 19th, together 

 with needful supplies of the seed-capsules, followed by more. 



The first moth was bred on July 14th, the last on 4th of August, 

 1879, both females, and at an earlier date many chalcids emerged. 



The egg in shape is a broad oval, its surface ribbed and pitted ; 

 when first laid the colour is pale straw-yellow, on the fifth day it begins 

 to look a little dirty, and hatches on the sixth. 



The young larva is whitish, with black head and a blackish plate 

 on the second segment ; after a moult it becomes of a faint drab tint 

 on the body ; after the second moult it assumes a deeper tint of drab 

 and has a darker dorsal line, the belly whitish, the head, the plate in 

 front and plate behind, brownish-black. As it advances in growth it 

 becomes more or less tinged with pinkish on the upper surface, showing 

 decided lines, and of a pearly-whiteness below. 



The full-grown larva, with reference to the size of the perfect insect 

 is, like some others of this genus, very small, not more than about from 

 three-eighths to half an inch in length, and from the form and re- 

 stricted size of its dwelling within the seed-capsule, its natural hunch- 

 backed looping posture tends apparently to dwarf its actual dimension, 

 its figure is dumpy for a Geometer, of about equal substance as far as 

 the tenth segment, from whence it tapers a little to the anal extremity, 

 the head is a little less than the second segment, though of a broadish 

 character, the segments of the body well divided and very plump, yet 

 each having two or three wrinkles across the back, the spiracular 

 region rather tumid : in colour the head is black or blackish-brown 



