1882.] 51 



rather glistening ; a few hours before hatching the top of the egg 

 becomes slightly convex, like a bun, and shows through the shell three 

 or four dusky brown specks. 



The newly-hatched larva is quite hairy, and, on examination, its 

 head is seen to be whity-brown, with dark mouth and ocelli, and a dark 

 grey internal dorsal vessel can be but indistinctly discerned through 

 the skin of the body, as it is clothed with long white hairs, and amongst 

 them are sub-dorsal hairs of a dusky greyish colour ; when a week old 

 the back becomes tinged with very bright green, and the belly appears 

 limpid and colourless ; up to this time it feeds on the cuticle of the 

 grass. 



After the first moult it eats out a little notch from the edge quite 

 through one side of a leaf ; the head now is greenish speckled with 

 dark red, the body is of a watery green, showing the internal vessel 

 deeply tinged with dark purplish-red, so that the back appears of this 

 colour, but with an interruption on the twelfth segment, the wart-like 

 tubercles are glossy, and furnished with, long single blackish hairs. 



After the second moult, it feeds in the same manner as before, 

 the dark purplish-red back shows an extremely fine double dorsal line 

 and whitish sub-dorsal lines, the pale gi'eenish head has minute dusky 

 specks, and each speck emits a black hair, and each tubercle of the 

 body also is similarly furnished. 



After the third moult the larva is of just the same colours, and 

 with all details of the previous stage, it now ceases to feed, and, after 

 spinning a little silk as a foothold, becomes torpid, until spring of the 

 following year. 



Having hibernated, and got safely over its subsequent fourth moult, 

 its light green colour is very much brighter, the dorsal line is now 

 darker green, and the sub-dorsal is creamy-white ; it still attacks the 

 edge of a leaf by first eating out a notch as far as the midrib, and 

 thence eats away either upward or downward, taking out long portions, 

 and always from the upper surface, until, in course of a week, its 

 growth becomes more perceptible, as it attains a length of from 

 5 to 6 mm. 



After the fifth moult its appearance is unchanged beyond the 

 increase of growth, as it soon extends to 7 or 8 mm. in length ; its 

 ravages on the grass are rather conspicuous, as it goes from one leaf 

 to another, yet is careful not to attack the extreme point or the mid- 

 rib, but after the 6th, or last moult, it feeds differently, beginning at 

 the top, head upward, and eating downward through the midrib from 

 one edge to the other in rather an oblique direction across the full 



