1575.1 .■; 



XATLKAL HISTORY OF LAllKyTI.L JiCFU'JyCTATA, ON., AND 



L. CJiSIATA, W. V. 



BT THE REV. J. HELLIIVS, M.A. 



I was very glad to receive eggs of ruficinctnta last August from 

 ]\[r. Carrington, and in March, having failed to bring my larvae 

 through the winter, I was still more glad to have my loss made good 

 by I\Irs. Hutchinson ; and I am now able to give a tolerably full 

 account of this species, and to compare some of its stages with ccesiata. 

 The result of this comparison will be to show that they stand vejy 

 much in the same relation to one another as exists in the genus Me- 

 lanippe between rivata and stihtristata. 



I received eggs of rufictnctatu on August loth ; the larv;e hatched 

 on 21st, and at first fed well on liowers of various stoueci'ops and 

 saxifrages, but when the flowers were past, would not touch the 

 leaves ; however, Mrs. Hutchinson found that the leaves of S. hypnoides 

 (a species I could not obtain) were readily eaten, and on that plant 

 kept her larvae through the winter, and on February 19th, she kindly 

 sent me some of them, then just moulting for the last time ; these 

 spun up during the last week of March and the first ten days of April, 

 and the first moth came out 3'^esterday, May 17th ; from the moths of 

 this first flight the larvae are found full-fed (and have been sent to 

 Mr. ]^uckler) in July ; and the second flight of moths is out at the 

 beginning of August : ruficlnctata therefore is double brooded, one 

 brood going through all its transformations iu the period between the 

 middle of May and the beginning of August, and the other taking up 

 the rest of the twelve months, chiefly in the larval stage. 



The egg is rather long-oval in outline, full, with one end blunted ; 

 the shell ])itted all over with irregular reticulation ; the colour (when 

 I received the eggs from Mr. Carrington) light bright red; afterwards 

 dingy ; the young larva is pale olive, with broad dorsal and finer waved 

 sub-dorsal darker liiu's ; head shining black, the blackish dots each set 

 with a long lu'istlc soiucwhal clublicd at the tip: iu about a month 

 (with the secojid ])rood, that is) the dorsal pattern begins to appear,, 

 the colour otherwise being diirk brownish: the larva^ that came to me 

 in spring were about half grown, witli the dorsal pattern well de- 

 veloped. The full grown larva is six-eighths of an inch long, in figure 

 tliick set, tapering from the fifth segment to head, which is small and 

 rounded, and tapering, but not so much, from the tenth to tail ; when 

 viewed sideways rather flattened; divisions well marked; sl<iii wrinkly; 

 the usual dots distinct as minute raised warts with longisji hairs. In 

 colour there are three varieties knowu to me : 



