272 [M-^y. 



Tho iiewly-batclicd larva is about Ts'-in length, with the first and 

 second pairs o£ ventral legs less developed than the third and fourth 

 pairs, so that the walk is semi-looping ; the head of a rather light 

 shining orange-brown colour ; the back slaty-grey, the sides pale drab, 

 the black warts very large and round, each furnished with a small black 

 bristle ; in this stage the likeness to cceruleocephala is marked, but at 

 each moult the warts become proportionately smaller and less con- 

 spicuous, besides assuming another colour, and so this resemblance 

 disappears : from the first the young larva eats small holes quite through 

 the leaves of its food, and I noticed its habit of spinning a few threads 

 for a foothold. 



After the first moult, a slight protuberance appears on the twelfth 

 segment and front portion of the thirteenth, the ground colour is pale 

 greenish, bearing dorsal and sub-dorsal lines of paler dots, and on the 

 middle segments a wide sort of incomplete >/ in very fine black lines ; 

 the black tubercular dots were much smaller than before and only to 

 be seen with a lens, but their bristles had become longer, the anterior 

 legs were black, and on the outside of each ventral leg was a black spot. 



After the second moult, the head was pale shining green, the body 

 light dull green having a purplish tinge in it, the tubercular dots pale 

 yellowish, the dorsal markings composed of elongate whitish-yellow 

 dots two on a segment, and along the sub-dorsal region were four 

 yellowish dots on each segment, a slanting streak of the same colour 

 appeared on the side of the fourth, and a transverse streak on the ridge 

 of the twelfth, and a black spot on each ventral leg as before. 



Having moulted the third time, June 3rd — 5th, the larvae began 

 to assume their well-known star-gazing posture, with all the front part 

 of the body extended upward in a curve bringing the head so for back 

 as to be elevated just over the eleventh segment, while the anterior 

 legs were freely outspread, the third pair wider apart than the others ; 

 all the details of colour being similar to those of the previous stage. 



The fourth moult happened on 9th — 10th of June, and they soon 

 resumed feeding, eating large pieces out of the leaves at intervals, and 

 at other times were to be seen for long periods hanging to the birch 

 sprays motionless in their singular attitude of repose, but yet so 

 suggestive of great musciilar exertion and watchfulness ; their growth 

 now seemed rapid, as in course of three days they were observed, when 

 in motion, to be an inch and three lines long, stout, and thickest behind, 

 their colouring of the same light green as before, the upper surface 

 bearing rather warty spots of bright yellow, and, of the same yellow, 

 slash-like streaks on the thoracic and posterior segments ; the anterior 



