918 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



and stout. The anterior region is thinner than the abdominal end, 

 which is stouter. The head is more or less triangular. The anal horn 

 is prominent and curved. The whole body is fringed with minute whitish 

 tubercles. The two longitudinal rows of tubercles on the dorsal surface 

 are prominent and the individual tubercles are bigger and really made up 

 of two or three smaller tubercles around a bigger one. The general 

 colour is green with the difference that the region on the dorsal surface 

 between the two longitudinal rows of sjjiracles is bright green while the 

 sides and ventral portion of the body have a bluish tinge. Each row of 

 tubercles appears as a pinkish line from the prothorax to the anal horn ; 

 the latter is pale green and studded with tubercles. Mouth parts brown ; 

 legs purplish-brown. Prolegs and claspers with purple 'edges. There 

 are .six clear and one or two faint whitish tangent stripes at the sides ; 

 the last one meeting the horn is clearer than the rest. 



This stage lasts from twelve to fourteen days. At the end of this 

 period the larva stops feeding and descends into the soil to pupate. 



Pupa. The lar\a gres three or four inches into the soil and more if 

 the soil is not hard and easily penetrated ; there it makes a cell of earth, 

 and after this it changes into the pupa. The pupa inside the earthen 

 cocoon is .36 mm. long. It is thick anteriorly, and bluntly pointed behind 

 and chocolate )>rown in colour. There is a short forked spine at the 

 anal end : — 



The pupal period lasts twehe to fouiteen days. The following is a 

 table showing period of pupation in different cases. 



Date of pupation 



Ttli Dcceuilicr 

 SOth July . 

 2-1 til February 

 21st October 

 21-81 November 



Date of emergence 



29th December. 

 13th August. 

 9th March. 

 2nd November. 

 3rd December. 



The development period thus takes in all about nine to ten weeks, 

 the period being occupied as below : — eggs a week, larva 48 to 50 days, 

 pupa 12 to 14 days. The period of each stage is found to differ slightly 

 according to seasonal variations. 



General remarks.. The larva is easy to rear. I have never caught 

 the adults in nature. As stated before, the most interesting feature 

 in this caterpillar is the presence of a head-horn in the early stages of the 

 caterpillar, a character which is not common in most Sphingidae. 



