^ THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



The ova, on my return to England, were kept in a room which 

 had an average indoors summer temperature, and the larvns 

 emerged at the end of the month. Shortly after emergence 

 they were transferred to a greenhouse which in the summer is 

 kept without artificial heat, the door and top-lights in the day 

 open, and the roof shaded hy tomato-plants. Under these 

 conditions the average temperature would he somewhat warmer 

 than that of the surrounding atmosphere not protected hy glass, 

 especially at night. The larva throughout fed slowly, showing 

 no tendency to produce an autumnal emergence of imagines, and 

 the first one did not pupate until the end of August ; two others, 

 the only ones to reach maturity, did not commence to change 

 until the middle of September. I tried them on various grasses, 

 hut the only one they would eat freely was Dactylis glomcrata, 

 and, so far as I was able to see, they fed exclusively by night, 

 remaining stretched out at full length on their food-plant during 

 the day. 



The full-grown larva is about 30 mm. in length when stretched 

 at rest on a blade of grass. The head is very rounded and 

 prominent, and much wider than the second segment, which 

 gives the larva the appearance of having 41 distinct neck ; it is 

 grass-green in colour, thickly spo-'inkled with lighter tubercles, 

 each one of which emits a green spine ; the ground colour of the 

 remainder of the segments is of the same tint of green as the 

 head, but lighter, and the tubercles and spines are at much 

 greater intervals. The centre of the dorsal area from second to 

 anal segments is darker than the rest, and is bounded on the 

 sides by green stripes of lighter colour than that of the general 

 area ; these two stripes are each about one millimetre in width 

 in the centre, and taper off at each end, those towards the anus 

 terminating in points ; half-way between these stripes and the 

 spiracles are another pair of stripes which have the upper mar- 

 gins of the same dark colour as the mid dorsal area, and which 

 gradually shade off below to the colour of the general surface, 

 the spiracles being green and inconspicuous. In the spiracular 

 area is another pair of stripes of the same tint as those previously 

 described. The anal points are light green and very spiny ; the 

 ventral is of the same colour as the dorsal area. 



Pupation is certainly not subterraneous ; the three larvae 

 which eventually became pupae attached themselves by the anal 

 extremity to a pad of silk spun on the roof of the cage, but did 

 not seem to have the strength to retain that position, and before 

 changing, or possibly in the act of changing, fell to the soil on 

 the floor of the cage and changed there ; probably a cold 

 snap which just then intervened was responsible for this. The 

 pupa is green, of the same tint as the larva, and is about 

 12 mm. long. 



There seems some doubt as to whether this species is usually 



