THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 269 



legs:* the thoracic legs had gray rings at the base; the 

 abdominal legs were moderately large, becoming smaller 

 towards the tail ; but the last pair in these young larvce was 

 only to be detected with difhcully. 



On the 14th of June the largest larva had grown to the 

 length of a centimetre (fig. 3) ; figs. 4 and C represent it 

 somewhat magnified. The colour of the little animal, which 

 was very viscid, was a sordid yellow, in which the dark 

 green intestine showed out distinctly. When viewed from 

 above, the head appears of a purplish tint, and at the same 

 time one seems to see an indication of two legs on either side, 

 in consequence of the transparency of the skin at the side of 

 the anterior segments. Looked at from the front, while it 

 feeds, the larva has the appearance of fig. 6: it moves its 

 head right and left for the purpose of eating, and looks then 

 something like a grazing cow lying on its belly. The head 

 is nut-brown, flat anteriorly, and covered for a great part by 

 the skin of the 1st segment; the vertex is blackish, and, as 

 the skin by which it is covered is yellowish, it shows through 

 purple, according to the law of complementary colours. The 

 eyes are in oval black spots at the sides ; the horns, or 

 feelers, below the eyes, are pretty long. The first pair of legs 

 is of a yellowish colour; the second and third gray, with 

 white rings; the claws were j)laced at right angles on the last 

 joint of the tarsi. 



The beautiful appearance of the white air-tubes, which 

 could be seen through the skin, was very remarkable: this 

 was specially visible in the last two segments, when the 

 branching of the trachea) appeared, as represented at fig. 5, 

 somewhat more highly magnified. When they were not 

 feeding they bent the head Ibrvvard, nearly flat against the 

 surface of the leaf, which almost entirely deprived them of the 

 appearance of living animals. No trace of hair was to be 

 seen ; and in the examples which came under my observation 

 1 could perceive nothing of the stellate brown hairs, which 

 Ratzeburg states that he observed in the case of a single 

 individual of the autumn brood. The larva? crept into the 

 ground to undergo their change ; and I am unaware whether 

 they made cocoons or not. 



* I may here mention tbat the brown caterpillar of S. tethiops, whicli, 

 according to Eeaumur, De Geer, and Hartig, has twenty legs, Las in like 

 manner twenty -two, but often retracts one or two pairs under the skin. 



