1884.] 1^J^J 



to be tenanted by the larvap, whose ravages had thus betrayed them- 

 selves to him, and from the experience subsequently gained, he arrived 

 at the conclusion that each larva had ravaged about nine or ten shoots 

 of Cladium before it was fed up. 



When the Cladium is mown, the situation of the larva is found 

 to average a distance of about an inch and three-quarters below the 

 cut surface, where the leaves are grown so compactly together as to 

 form almost a solid substance, and the^^e, a little above the root-stock 

 on the outside, is a roundish hole, pierced horizontally or tortuously 

 to the very heart or centre of the plant, from whence this excavation 

 is enlarged and extended either upwards or downwards or a little in 

 both directions, just as the larva chooses to feed ; and the hollow 

 residence thus eaten out is thereby more or less irregular in form and 

 direction, though generally an inch and a half in perpendicular length 

 and from a quarter to three-eighths in width, as from a sample 

 coTnprising a good number of these excavations, most kindly sent by 

 Mr. Fletcher for my inspection, I found all varying a little from each 

 other, though in one important particular they were alike, in the 

 fact of their being just sufficiently low down to escape the scythe 

 of the mower. 



On the 14th of August I bred the moth, a female. The length 

 of the larva I figured was from 13 to 14 lines, it was of moderate 

 thickness and very cylindrical throughout, except that the head was a 

 trifle smaller than the second segment and the third and fourth rather 

 the stoutest, the thirteenth with a very remarkable sloping plate on 

 the anal flap flattened in the middle and having a prominent ridge 

 round the margin with large tubercular warts at the hinder edge ; the 

 segmental divisions plainly defined, and also the sub-dividing wrinkles 

 across the back of each beyond the fourth, viz., one not far from the 

 beginning, another well behind the first pair of tubercular warts, and 

 a third a little behind the second pair of the trapezoid, and all the legs 

 very well developed ; in colour the head was of a dark warm brown, 

 darkest at the mouth and very glossy, a black glossy plate on the 

 second segment, the anal plate blackish-brown with black marginal 

 ridge and posterior warts ; the rest of the body above was of a very 

 dark slaty-brown, rather inclining to a very deep olivaceous-drab, 

 especially on the thoracic segments ; and the belly and legs a lighter 

 drab, the faintly paler dorsal and sub-dorsal lines of drab just distinct 

 enough to be seen ; the tubercular warts black-brown, each with a fine 

 hair, and in relative sizes and situation arranged precisely the same as 



