1867.] 75 
in a cold room. From time to time I watered the plants to keep them 
alive. On the 14th February I searched for the larva? which had sur- 
vived the winter, in order to put them again in the sunshine. In the 
flower-pots which had been exposed to the open air I found both the 
plants and larviB were dead ; in the third flower-pot I found fifteen 
larvffi of rather different sizes : they had sat motionless the whole time, 
either on the stems of grass, or on or under living leaves of Erodium. 
As I had not spared anything necessary for their rearing, I come to the 
conclusion that the reason the females are so fruitful in autumn is that 
" many larvas may be destroyed during the winter without injury to the 
species ; and that this is truly the case seems to be shown from the fact, 
that the multitude of larvee which are to be found in autumn does not 
at all correspond to the number of butterflies of Medon which appear 
in spring. 
Supplied with fresh food, which would probably taste well in the 
sunny window, my larvae cast their skins several times. Although I 
could not make any precise observations, yet it is certain that the num- 
ber of moultings does not differ from what occurs in other species of 
Lyccena. Of the fifteen larvse seven died by degrees. One, just dead, 
which I described on the 14th March, was already nearly five lines long. 
Its shining black head had a grey face ; the body pale green, with a 
deep, rather narrow, posteriorly attenuated, dark red dorsal streak. 
The warts near it on each segment with about twelve unequally long, 
pointed, pale bristles, which, on the anterior segments, stand almost 
perpendicularly, on the middle and hinder segments are inclined more 
posteriorly. I could not perceive that these larvse had a cone capable 
of being protruded (like that which we find in Lyccena Gorydon, and 
which the ants are so fond of licking). Pectoral legs black; ventral 
legs of the same colour as the pale belly, which, on each segment from 
the fourth, has on each side a black streak reaching to the lateral wart ; 
these streaks, however, are not perceptible in the living larva. The red 
lateral stripe as usual. 
Having planted three vigorous plants, the remaining larvae prospered 
so well, that by the 8th April, I could look upon them as quite, or 
almost quite, full grown. They devoured the primate leaves — gnawed 
the stem of the leaf, hence causing the upper part to wither, and did 
not spare the young shoots, when the plants assumed at last a very 
injured appearance, and were abundantly sprinkled with grains of 
brown-green excrement. The larvae crawl very slowly whilst they 
spin a white tliread, which they fasten to the right and left, and on 
