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The eggs, green, of usual Lyccena style, are deposited one in a place, 

 at the base of the young pod, usually on the calyx of the flower, or 

 that part which envelopes the base of the pod. Sometimes the ^^^ is 

 found on the pod itself or upon the stem, but only exceptionally so. 

 Soon after hatching the young larva makes its way into the interior of 

 the young pod, the hole by which it enters being as yet undiscovered, 

 and thenceforth to maturity it lives upon the immature seeds. In the 

 earlier brood one pod is usually sufficient for the complete maturity of 

 one larva, but later, as the increasing heat and dryness causes a more 

 speedy ripening of the pod and seeds, the larva is often only half grown 

 when the seeds are all eaten up, and starvation awaits the larva if it 

 remains in the pod. It then gnaws a hole in the side of the now mature 

 pod, and coming out, wanders about to find a fresh pod. This having 

 been found it eats a hole just large enough to squeeze its body through 

 with great labor, and, entering, explores the interior to see if it be 

 suitable and unoccupied, and if so found it returns to the hole and 

 seals it over on the inside, spreading over first a fibrous, silky tissue, 

 and then smearing over that a coating of mucilage that closes the aper- 

 ture both air and water tight. I have seen a half-grown larva make 

 the opening and go in in fifteen or twenty minutes, and again others 

 will try to enter by so small a hole that they will occupy an hour in 

 squeezing their bodies through. If the new pod is satisfactory they 

 come back in half an hour to seal over the door-way by which they 

 entered. Established thus in their new house, they remain till mature, 

 when they come out, the early brood to pupate and the latter ones to 

 hibernate. From the behavior of mature larvae in confinement I judge 

 that the early ones suspend on twigs or sticks to transform, after or- 

 thodox fashion. Such as I have had pupate in tin-boxes always go up 

 into the corner of the cover and attach themselves to both angles. 

 The latter brood I believe hibernate in larval stage in a slight cocoon 

 in the ground, or under leaves and rubbish. It would seem more 

 proper that they should hibernate in chrysalis, being mature, but some 

 larvc-e that I have seen in confinement have remained unchanged nearly 

 a month, neither eating nor pupating, nor dying. If they were to 

 hibernate in chrysalis they would have pupated upon reaching maturity. 

 In the spring they must pupate and transform without eating. 



As will be seen by the foregoing, ants have nothing to do with these 

 larvce in any stage. I cannot even surely make out any organs on 

 posterior segments as in some species. To still further test the matter 

 I placed some ants upon a larva, and while the ants paid no extraordi- 

 nary attention to the larva, the larva shrank away from the touch of 

 the ants in evident dislike or fear. And of the thousands of pods I 

 have opened I have never seen ants in but one, in which case it was 

 full of them, and they had evidently just devoured the larva. 



