152 December, 



transverse Hues, and are so continued on to the other side, thus 

 forming along the back a series of transversely elongated lozenges, 

 touching one another at their obtuse angles. The larva feeding looks 

 very like a depressed Helix (shell) with the mollusc out and crawling." 

 Very similar to these are the larvae of Chr. polita and Banhsi, both of 

 which I have reared from the egg to the imago ; and fastuosa has the 

 same essential characters, at least as far as I was able to trace them, 

 which was up to the completion of the first moult.* These four species 

 feed on labiate plants : polita and varians on Mentha, Banhsi on 

 Stachys, and fastuosa on Lamium. Stephens placed the latter beetle 

 in his sub-genus Gastrophysa, Chevrolat along with raphani and 

 polygoni, living on plants of a different natural order — Polygonaceoe. 

 The points in which fastuosa agrees vi ith. polita and Banhsi, and differs 

 from G. raphani, may be stated as follows : the glutinous matter ac- 

 companying the eggs, and which, according to Von Siebold, is the 

 disintegrated portion of the tunica propria which accompanies them 

 into the oviduct, is very abundant in Gastrophysa, dries up very slowly, 

 and remains always more or less sticky. In Chrysomela it is scanty 

 and dries up quickly into a brittle substance, so that the eggs, when 

 in clusters, are readily broken asunder and scattered about like ripe 

 seeds. The eggs in hatching, open in both cases, by a longitudinal 

 slit over the dorsum of the larva ; but, in Gastrophysa, the empty 

 shell remains gaping, and tends to collapse, whilst in Chrysomela, the 

 slit closes so accurately and the shell retains its original shape so 

 completely, that it is often difficult to tell whether the larva has 

 escaped. I have seen a young larva of Banhsi that had come out of 

 the egg tail first, caught by the neck in the elastic shell, which it 

 dragged after it but could not escape from, like a mouse in a trap. 

 In Chrysomela the eye-spots are six, in two rows of three each, on 

 each side of the head. In Gastrophysa the external spot of the pos- 

 terior row is wanting. Very conspicuous on the meso- and meta-i| 

 thorax of the Gastrophysa embryo within the shell are four large 

 black spots in the form of a square. In Chrysomela the equivalent! 

 spots are six in number, the additional pair being on the first ab- 

 dominal segment ; and they diminish in size from before backwards. 



The larva of Gastrophysa is tuberculate, and agrees generally, 

 especially in the points which I have italicised, with the description of 

 the larva of Chr. {Lino) populi, as given by Westwood (Modern 

 Classification, vol. i, p. 388) — " This larva (fig. 48, 9, &c.) is of an 



* I have also found a larva of this type feeding on oat leaves. It was probably Chr. graminii, 

 but I did not succeed in rearing it. — J. A. O. 



