116 [October, 



When about to change, the larva drew around it with a few fine threads a leaf 

 of bramble or Veronica, or any withered bit of leaf or moss it found on the surface 

 of the soil, and changed therein. 



After hibernation, they seemed to have lost the power of curling up when dis- 

 turbed, biit now seemed to feign death by extreme i-igidity, allowing themselves to 

 be turned over and rolled about without betraying hfe by any movement; their 

 natural postiire, too, in repose on their food plants was straight and stick-like. 



I could not help noticing how closely, both in form and general appearance, 

 these larvae of degeneraria came to those of inornaia. 



When full-grown, the larva of degeneraria is seven-eighths of an inch in length, 

 broadest at the ninth segment, and from thence tapering gradually to the head (the 

 smallest segment), the posterior segments taper but little to the rounded anal tip ; 

 the body is convex both above and below, and has a projecting rounded ridge along 

 the sides, so that it appears somewhat flattened ; the segmental divisions are well 

 defined by the end of each segment projecting at the side, in breadth, beyond the 

 beginning of the next ; the skin is rugose, with abou.t twelve sub-dividing wrinkles 

 in each segment ; the head indented on the crown. 



In coloiu*, the head is chiefly blackish-brown, conspicuously marked on the 

 crown of each lobe with pale cinnamon or bright rust colour, which extends as a 

 stripe down its outer side ; a patch of the same coloiir is on the dorsal surface of the 

 three following segments, being rounded at the sides on the second segment, tri- 

 ang\jlar, and pomting backwards on the third and fourth ; with these exceptions, 

 the rest of the back, as far as the end of the eighth segment, is deeply suffused with 

 dark brpwm, the remainder being again of bright rust colom*, strongly contrasting 

 with the darker hue of the middle segments ; on the back of each segment, fi-om the 

 fifth to the ninth inchisive, are double darker brown markings, somewhat like Vs, 

 pointing backwards, and standing one a little in front of the other at the hinder part 

 of the segment, their limbs are curved outward soon after their commencement, and 

 by degrees finely attenuated as they reach the next segment in front, each arm of 

 a V being thus like a miniature wlUow leaf; in front of these, and embraced by their 

 arms, is rather an elliptic shape of similar dark brown, and then a black square 

 mark, close to the segmental division ; both of these shapes are distinctly divided 

 in halves by the thin pale greyish-ochreous dorsal line, which then vanishes, but 

 re-appears as a pale spot or two within the base of the hinder V mark : the sub- 

 dorsal line is of the same pale colour, and also appears only for a little just at each 

 end of a segment, where it intersects a dark brown streak at the side of the back, 

 slanting in a coxirse parallel to the limbs of the Vs ; on the hinder rust-coloured 

 segments the markings are more tender, and on the last three are but imperfect 

 diamond shapes of brown, the tubercidar blackish dots being visible on them ; a 

 faint thin line of ashy-grey separates the coloiiring of the back from the blackish 

 belly, which has on each segment three ashy-grey marks, together in form resembling 

 a lyi'c, and two dots of the same grey colour at each end ; the spiracles are black, 

 and the tubercular warts and their short bristles are ^^ery minute, and rather 

 minierous at each end of the body. 



The only variations that occurred were, that one individual from first to last 

 continued to bo rust coloured, and that another became after hibernation wholly i 

 suffused with dark brown. , 



