1881.] 57 



DESCRIPTION OF THE LARVA OF JENNYCHIA OCTOMACULALIS. 



BY WILLIAM BUCKLEE. 



The larva of this species is, barring Ichneumons, easy enough to 

 bring to full growth and to spinning its cocoon for hibernation, but 

 most difficult to prevent from dying afterwards at the critical time 

 when the larva should become a pupa : this at least has been the 

 experience of my friend Mr. Wm, H. Jeffrey, and myself for four 

 years in succession. 



Mr. Jeffrey found five or six of the larva? first on September 

 19th, 1877, and kindly sent some of his captures to me ; at that time 

 the species was of course unknown to us, and our hopes that one or 

 other might rear a moth were entirely foiled by all the larvae dying 

 within their cocoons before pupation. 



In 1878, Mr. Jeffrey found but two larva?, and these again both 

 died in the same way : in 1879 he found four, and shared them with 

 me ; before hibernation we each lost one larva by parasites, and again 

 the unstung examples died in their cocoons. 



Nothing daunted by all this failure, Mr. Jeffrey persevered in 

 his search again last year, and on the lbth of August found four of 

 our still unknown larva?, and again, on the 3rd of September, three 

 more in a younger stage than any previously detected ; my friend 

 kept for himself but two larva?, part of the four first found ; yet, most 

 fortunately, with one of these he has been successful in solving our 

 puzzle, and on the 2nd of the present month he had the pleasure of 

 breeding a fine female E. octomaculalis, and great indeed is the satis- 

 faction this success has given to both of us. 



Hitherto as a larva unknown in England, this species is mentioned 

 by Dr. E. Hofmann, in his " Klein schmetterlingsraupen," as living on 

 and skeletonizing the under-side of the leaf of Bellidiastruni Miclielii ; 

 but he gives no description of the larva itself, nor does he say whether 

 Hartmann, whom he quotes, has described it. 



In this country the larva is found in a slight whitish web on the 

 under-side of the lowermost leaves of Solidago virgaurea, eating away 

 large portions from them ; when only the length of a quarter of an 

 inch it is of a whitish-green tint with greener dorsal line, but after 

 the next moult assumes very much the appearance in all but size of 

 the adult, and again moults before attaining its full dimensions. 



When full grown the larva is from five-eighths to nearly three 

 quarters of an inch in length, tapering at both ends, the head some- 

 what broader near the mouth than at the crown, the segments of the 



