188-2.) 245 



Of course what follows is really the personal history of the 

 individuals which I watched, and though for convenience sake I shall 

 generalize, and sometimes use the present tense and not the past, I 

 wish it to be understood that I speak only of what I was aware I saw ; 

 I know I made one omission, which will be noticed in its proper place. 

 The eggs hatched June 13th — 15th, the larva? in every case making 

 their first meal on the empty shell, and for a day or two I supplied 

 them with garden carrot, but after that they were fed entirely on 

 Angelica sylvestris ; from first to last each larva was kept separate, 

 and its changes noted in a separated record. 



The larva, on first turning its attention to its food plant, scoops 

 out a round cell on the surface of a leaf, but after a few hours takes 

 the bolder course of eating quite through from the edge of the leaf ; 

 it does not roam, but continues at the same part till the third or fourth 

 day, when it moves off to some distance and on a stalk or leaf spins a 

 few silk threads for a foothold ; there it waits from two to three days 

 for the first moult, and when this is accomplished eats the cast skin all 

 to the head-piece, and soon after goes^ — apparently by design — back to 

 the spot where it was previously feeding, and attacks the leaf again : 

 at this stage I noticed if a larva found a speck of frass on its food, it 

 would pick it up in its jaws, stretch out its body, and somehow project 

 the frass away from the plant : again, after feeding three or four days 

 it retires as before, and prepares for and accomplishes its second 

 moult, which happens on about the twelfth day of its life ; similarly the 

 third moult comes on the sixteenth or seventeenth day, and the fourth 

 (the last) from the twentieth to the twenty-third day, the cast skin 

 being always eaten : after the last moult the larva feeds on for ten or 

 twelve days, consuming a great quantity of food and making very 

 rapid growth ; I may here note that its usual attitude in repose is from 

 the very first much like that of a Sphinx, with the neck arched, and 

 the head bent down. The earliest age at which I noticed the curious 

 horns of the second segment was when I touched the larva just after 

 its third moult ; they were then much longer and thinner than they 

 became after the fourth moult, but there accompanied their protrusion 

 a drop or two of clear greenish liquid, and a most penetrating odour, 

 which reminded me of an overkept decaying pine-apple : after the 

 fourth moult the horns were of a shorter and stouter character, but I 

 noticed that when I was holding a larva between my finger and thumb 

 it had the power to lengthen one horn at the expense of the other 

 (which became shorter), so as to manage to touch my finger with it ; the 

 horns are extremelv soft and flexible. When full grown the larva 



