136 TNovember, 



Mr. Edmunds informs me that the colour when fresh is a rich orange, but it 

 changes in a few days to a leaden grey. 



The larvae, when newly hatched, are little dingy things, with black shiny 

 heads, looking as if they could pierce the hard black coats of the ash leaf-buds. — Id. 



Description of the larva of Girrwdia xerampelina. — In April, 1866, the Rev. 

 Joseph Greene kindly sent me a larva he had found concealed in a chink of an 

 ash-trunk ; but as the imago did not appear, its identity was not established till 

 the present season. 



On the 22nd of May last, I had the pleasure to receive another similar larva, 

 detected in a like situation near Leominster by Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, who also 

 generously consigned it to me, enabling me to secure two figures of it in mature 

 growth. 



When full fed, it spun a rather small cocoon, covered with grains of earth to 

 which a few particles of moss adhered ; and the perfect insect came forth on the 

 5th of September. 



The first larva was found before the ash trees had put forth blossoms, and ash 

 buds were given it for food, into which the larva ate round holes, burrowed, and 

 devoured the interiors. 



The second and full-grown lai-va came after the ash had assumed its foliage, 

 and it partook of young shoots for a few days before spinning. The larva had 

 then attained nearly one inch and a quarter in length, and was rather broad in 

 proportion, the head rather smaller than the next segment. Viewed sideways, it 

 appeared tapering gradually towards the head, and from the eleventh segment to 

 the anal extremity ; but seen on the back, it looked of almost uniform width, 

 excepting just at each end. The divisions deeply cut, giving each segment a 

 plump appearance. 



The larva, when two-thirds grown, is very suggestive of lichen, and of a lichen- 

 feeder. Its head is shining dark grey-brown, mottled and streaked with darker 

 blackish-brown ; a black shining plate on the second segment having two rather 

 broad angulated whitish stripes. The back and sides are brownish-grey, delicately 

 mottled with a darker tint of the same. 



The dorsal stripe is dirty whitish, edged with black, and is on the third and 

 fourth segments continuous, but contracted and expanded, while on the others it is 

 only visible, and expanded towards the end of each segment, excepting the twelfth 

 and thirteenth, where it is widened into a broad blotch, extending to the sub-dorsal 

 region, and strongly margined with black ; from its base on the middle segments is 

 a brownish-grey streak on either side, curved obliquely forward to the middle of 

 the sub-dorsal line. The tubercular dots whitish, delicately ringed with black, and 

 with minute black centres, each with a short and very fine hair. 



The sub-dorsal line is a very thin thread of dirty whitish, delicately and inter- 

 ruptedly edged with black ; the space between it and the spiracular region is 

 greyish-brown, darker than the back, and having a paler blotch in • the middle 

 of each segment. 



The spiracular stripe is a pale freckled brownish-grey, edged above by a black 

 line ; the spiracles dirty whitish, outlined with grey, and inconspicuous. The belly 

 and legs a slightly mottled greenish -grey. 



