﻿290 LÉPIDOPTÉROLOGIE COMPARÉE 



July isi. The larvae of alcon are (especially No. 2) often 

 away from the ant brood, they are fat, and comparatively pale. 

 The skin is very délicate and not only the dorsal vessel but ail 

 the fat masses are very plam beneath it, the hairs are very 

 scattered, but very obvious, being dark on a pale back-ground, 

 obvious, that is, under a high-power hand lens. The flesh 

 colour is pale and is seen to resuit from a coloured iayer, super- 

 ficial to the fat masses and hardly distinguishable from the 

 skin. The attempts of the ants to remove them, in which they 

 hâve but triflnig success, are rather ludicrous. If the ants were 

 as stout as the larvae of alcon, the latter would be 25 to 30 tnnes 

 their bulk, but as the ants are much more slender and at the 

 vv^aist very exiguous, the larvae of alcon must be more like 

 100 times the bulk of an ant. 



July çth. For several days the alcon hâve been more léthargie 

 and yesterday and to-day are quite so, and the thoracic seg- 

 ments are slightly longer and rounder and there is a slight waist 

 at ist abdominal segment, the appearances strongly suggest that 

 pupation and not merely larval-ecdysis is contemplated. 



]uly loth. No. I alcon is f ound at 1 1 a. m. changed to pupa, 

 the abdomen is similar in appearance and coloration to the larva, 

 the thorax is w^hitish, the appendages (legs, wings, &c.) are of 

 glassy transparency and of the famtest grey tmt. An ant is 

 seated on the pupa, the cast larva skin is missing, carried off, 

 of course, by the ants, but it is not seen in midden or elsewhere. 

 The position of the pupa is the same as the larva had yesterday, 

 quite alone, 70 mm. from brood nest. The ants, however appear 

 to visit it frequently. The wings, &c., hâve extended downwards 

 a good way beyond that noticed at 11 a. m. when the change 

 to pupa must hâve therefore been very récent. The colours are 

 still larval, but the form and proportions are now that of a pupa, 

 length 12 mm., dorsally thorax 4 mm., abdomen 8 mm., ventrally 

 head to end of wings 9 mm., abdomen 3 mm. ; height, at 

 3rd abdominal segment 4 mm., at thorax 3 mm. The free portion 



