284 THK ENTOMOLOGIST. 



that they soon make a plant look as if it had been riddled 

 with shot. They also now commence to eat round holes into 

 the succulent shoots and stems, burrowing quite into the 

 plant, and evince a strong liking for the buds and flowers. 

 They would soon prove most unwelcome guests to any lover 

 of his bright-flowered geranium beds. An entomologist would 

 most likely be glad to sacrifice Flora to his aurelian pet; but 

 a gardener would wage a war of extermination. When about 

 half grown the larvae become terrible cannibals, eating their 

 brothers or sisters with a zest and pertinacity quite horrible. 

 They are mean and cowardly, generally seizing their 

 weaker and more helpless brethren when about to cast their 

 skins. As they became full fed they appeared to hold each 

 other in mortal fear, and, like most guilty people, lived in 

 constant dread of being arrested for past oflences, for when 

 touched by another larva, ever so slightly, they would wriggle, 

 twist, and throw themselves off the plant to escape a fate 

 they had possibly inflicted on others. When full grown and 

 extended they are about an inch and a half long, of moderate 

 thickness, slightly attenuated from the middle, both anteriorly 

 and posteriorly ; the head is about the size of the anterior 

 segment, shining brown, slightly mottled with darker shades; 

 on second segment is a coriaceous shiny plate or skin, giving 

 it the appearance of being wet; the dorsal and inedio-dorsal 

 area is of a raw sienna-colour tinged with green, and pencilled 

 in fine broken parrallel lines of yellow and darker shades, 

 varying a little in tone in different individuals, but to no very 

 great extent; there is a slight and interrupted dorsal line, 

 formed by two fine oblong dark spots, edged witli yellow on 

 each segment, and a still more indistinct medio-dorsal line 

 produced by four or six dark-coloured small waits, two or 

 three on either side of each segment, and each emitting a 

 short bristly hair; the spherical line is sharply defined, of a 

 pale ochreous, lined above, first with a fine yellow and then 

 a dark umber line, and below by a white line; the legs and 

 claspers are pale ochreous; ventral surface a colourless gray, 

 with three while lines. The pupa is subterranean ; and the 

 moth a|)pears in August, September, and October. 

 3, Lewisliani Ruatl, Greeuwicli. 



