INVESTIGATIONS ON SCIAPHILA WAHLBOMIANA, ETC. 67 



points. (Whether the number of the thorns to these plates 

 of chitiue, 5 in the var. virgaureana, 6 in minusculana and 

 the var. coinmiuiana, and 8 in var. c., is constant, I cannot 

 venture to decide, as I have only thoroughly examined a 

 few larva?.) The head is either honey -yellow, with a black 

 hinder margin, or entirely black. The thoracic shield and 

 anal plate are always black. 



I found these larvae at Marktsteft on the 19th May, on 

 Cratcegus oxyacantha, but unfortunately did not succeed in 

 rearing the imago, so that I am unable to say whether they 

 correspond to any peculiar form of the imago or not, and the 

 determination of this point must be left for future observa- 

 tion. In the extensive biological collection of my brother 

 Ernst at Stuttgard, I found two beautifully-prepared 

 Sciaphila-\n.vY^, which belong to this variety, and were 

 found on the 26th May on Lathyrus sylvestris at Ratisbon. 



As to the larvae of the var. alticolana and deriva?ia, we 

 unfortunately possess no information ; of the first named 

 variety I once bred a specimen from Parnassia palustris 

 from the Bregenzerwald, which rather curiously made its 

 appearance as late as the 17th September. 



With reference to the remaining SciaphilcB, I only possess 

 a notice, by Herr Mann, of the larva of Chrysanthemana, 

 according to which the head and thoracic shield were black, 

 and the warts white, which would seem to speak in favour 

 of its specific distinctness. 



The three larvte which Fran Lienig described in the 

 " Isis," 1846, p. 235, all appear to me to belong to the typical 

 Wahlbomiana form, which, as already mentioned, is ex- 

 tremely variable in colour; at any rate they are not described 

 with sufiicient precision to be recognizable with certainty. 



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