40 tJ"iy. 



. T>escrij)tion of the larva, Sec, of Boarmia roloraria. — I am indebted to 



Mr. W. H. Harwood for repeated help in rearing this species, enabling me at length 

 to offer an acconnt of all its stages. With larva? sent in 1868, I failed entirely, but 

 succeeded much better with eggs in 1871 ; and this past spring, I have again been 

 furnished with a larva after hibernation, in order to make sure of one or two points. 



The eggs reached me on July 5th ; the larvae were hatched on 15th, and I soon 

 put them outdoors on a young oak ; when about three-quarters of an inch in length 

 they hibernate, taking up a position on a twig, and remaining motionless as if growing 

 from it ; about the end of January, 1872, 1 found them gnawing the bark of the 

 twigs, and this they did at intervals till they had barked all the twigs of their oak- 

 plant, and checked the development of the buds ; so that on looking at them about 

 the end of March, I found some dead from starvation, and the survivors looking 

 shrunken : I now put them on a fresh plant, the leaves of which had been forced, 

 and on these, as well as on the tender green stems of the new shoots, they fed well, 

 becoming full-grown towards the end of AprU or beginning of May ; the moths 

 appeared between June 5th and 12th. 



The egg, as is the case in this genus, is small in proportion to the moth, of flat- 

 tened oblong figure, one end blunter than the other ; the shell down the sides 

 reticulated in regular rows of four-sided meshes, with knots or little knobs at the angles, 

 and generally one or two extra on one of the four sides, as though the shape were 

 meant to be a pentagon or hexagon ; at the ends the meshes are pentagonal or hexa- 

 gonal, with the knots in their proper places ; the colour of the eggs when received 

 was dull greenish, one end becoming deep pink, the little knobs being white ; at last, 

 the whole egg became dark brownish. The newly-hatched larva is without humps, 

 in colour pale green, broad dark brown lateral stripe, head pale reddish-brown. The 

 first moult takes place in about a week, and the young larva conies out with indi- 

 cations of a hump on sixth eegmcnt ; the colour pale ochrcous on back, lateral stripe 

 pale brown, spiracular stripe pale ochrcous, belly darker. 



After this, the larva gets darker in colour, and attains a length of about three- 

 quarters of an inch before hibernation ; the head is now notched, and large for the 

 size of the body, the ventral and anal pairs of legs are also large ; the sixth segment 

 puffed, and bearing two transverse humps on the back ; the seventh with a pair of 

 ventral warts ; the twelfth with a transverse dorsal ridge bearing a pair of warts. 

 The colour a dull purplish on the back, the belly paler and more brownish, the folds, 

 humps, and ventral and anal legs all dusky grey ; the head ochrcous, freckled with 

 brownish ; at the folds, a slight dorsal pattern, viz., a blackish spot with an ochrcous 

 spot on either side. 



After hibernation it moults once, and then feeds up. The full-grown larva is 

 about one and three-quarters of an inch in length ; from above it appears of about uni- 

 form bulk throughout, except at the sixth segment ; but sideways it appears stoutest at 

 the ninth and tenth segments ; the head is narrower than the second segment, flattened 

 in front, notched on the crown, the lobes rising in conical prominences ; the sixth 

 segment very much swollen on the back and sides, and bearing a pair of puckered 

 Bub-dorsal humps ; the swelling begins just below the spiracle, which is thus lifted 

 considerably above the level of the spiracles of the other segments ; the seventh bears 

 on its belly a pair of transverse puckered humps, in some specimens looking more 

 like two sets of warts — three in each ; the tvjelfth has a slight transverse dorsal 



