ADALIA OBLITERATA IN SURREY. 243 



but think it probable that one set of stripes are the pieces inserted at 

 the time of enlargement, but whether the mealy stripes or the non- 

 mealy are the inserted ones I have failed to observe. These cases are 

 contracted considerably towards both ends, and the anal end has three 

 inconspicuous valves. In confinement the mealiness rapidly dis- 

 appears, as a fact it is eaten by other larvfe, which have the habit of 

 crawling over each other and getting into bunches. 



"The general body colour of the larva is dirty, dingy, pale yellow, 

 vitreous at the fore end of the body, but greenish on the back from the 

 contents of the abdominal canal shining through the semi-transparent 

 skin, which appears to be more transparent on the forward halt than 

 on the hinder half of the larva. The head is shining light brown- 

 yellow, glossy. The first thoracic segment is completely covered by a 

 very large plate, the suture of which partly divides it down the middle, 

 being only seen with difficulty, with the light in a particular direction, 

 and the sides reach almost down to the spiracular plates. The colour 

 is but very slightly darker than the ground colour, which renders 

 the plates very obscure. The second thoracic segment has two plates 

 on the back, the front edges forming a curve with the concave part 

 towards the head. The third thoracic segment has two dot-plates (?), 

 but they are very obscure, as also are the spiracular plates of the three 

 thoracic segments. The anal plate is large and black, and the outside 

 bases of the anal claspers have a fair-sized round black dot-plate 

 on each. There are four pairs of abdominal claspers." 



This species seems very prone to the attacks of a Dipteron, for on 

 every occasion when I have had the larvn? I have only bred an odd 

 imago or none at all. In a month or two after obtaining the larvae 

 I invariably find a multitude of the black puparia of the fly at 

 the bottom of the pot or larval cage. I have tried to feed this 

 species on the garden wormwood and for a time some seemed to feed 

 well, mining into the soft green stems, leaving only the outer cuticle, 

 but they soon tired of it and wandered and wandered after the manner 

 of their kind. I have never been succesful in breeding many of this 

 species. They do not survive the winter in our suburban conditions. 

 The loss of life among the larvje must be enormous, as one never finds 

 the imagines in any numbers in the early summer, so far as my 

 experience goes. Possibly Mr. Whittle might be able to give us some 

 details of how to successfully hybernate the larva?, as he lives in the 

 near neighbourhood of the local habitat of this species. 



Adalia obliterata, L., ab. sublineata, Weise, in Surrey. 



By G. W. NICHOLSON, M.D., F.E.S. 

 On September 22nd I swept three specimens of this aberration in 

 a larch plantation on Boxhill, in Surrey. As it has, apparently, not as 

 yet been recorded from Britain, and as it forms a connecting link 

 between the typo form of this — for a Coccinellid — extremely stable 

 species and its ab. feneatrata, Weise, its capture should certainly be 

 mentioned. Ganglbauer gives the following aberrations, or varieties 

 as he calls them, of this insect : — (1) ab. sublineata, Weise, in which 

 the elytra are marked with one or two longitudinal black stripes. 

 (2) ab. sexnotata, Thunb., in which they are mottled with black or 

 show three or four sharply defined black marks. (3) ab, fenestrata, 



