THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 77 



living, — all these circumstances seemed to make the subject 

 anything but attractive. At last, however, on a peculiarly 

 favourable opportunity presenting iiself for rearing the larva 

 in question, I made up my mind to the task, and, as I 

 had found a considerable number in my garden, I took some 

 of them indoors for the purpose of examination and observa- 

 tion. This was on the 20th of June, 1867. Unfortunately, 

 the larvae were nearly, if not quite, full grown. I think, 

 however, that I remember observing that the younger larvse, 

 which I had before seen, differed from the more advanced 

 examples merely in size. 



The head (fig. 3) was of the usual form, somewhat 

 depressed anteriorly ; its colour was grayish green, the eyes 

 being placed in rather large, round, black spots ; from each 

 of these spots proceeded a brown line, narrowing gradually 

 and going to the top of the head, where the lines joined. 

 There were some small brown spots about the trophi, and the 

 teeth of the mandibles were of the same colour. The body 

 was rather long and slender (see figs, 1, 2), and had 

 altogether twenty legs. Above the line of the tracheae the 

 body was strongly wrinkled; I counted five folds on each 

 segment. The 1st segment, the borders of the stigmata, the 

 middle and posterior legs, the 1 1th segment, and the anal 

 valve, were of a green-yellow tint; the remainder was green. 

 On either side of the neck behind the head on a level with 

 the eye was a fine black curved line, like a chevron reversed ; 

 a similar mark occurred above each thoracic leg (fig. 4); the 

 claws of these were brown. 



The little animals were nearly two centimetres long ; their 

 usual position was at full length along the edge of the leaf, 

 the posterior segments being slightly curved, as shown at 

 fig. 1 ; less frequently ihey were observed in the curved 

 position of fig, 2, this being otherwise the usual posture of 

 many species of Nematus. When they were full grown they 

 descended from the leaves to the ground, where they spun up, 

 under cover of some of the fallen leaves, in little shining, 

 brown cocoons, some being of a paler tint than the others. 

 Their original colour and appearance is shown at fig. 5. The 

 cocoons in question were single, and between six and seven 

 millemetres long. On the 16th of the following July I found 

 two females had made their appearance in the jar in which 1 



