192 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



entails on himself the necessity of constructing another. 

 These tubes are only to be found in autumn, and are deserted 

 as soon as the lime for hybernation arrives, when the larva 

 finds a somewhat more substantial retreat in the stem of the 

 cock's-foot or other grass, or sometimes in the dried or dying 

 stem of a stinging-nettle. At this period the body of the 

 larva is uniformly cylindrical, slightly hairy, and of a bright 

 straw-colour, with two brown dorsal stripes. It leaves its 

 hybernaculum in March, feeds during the whole of April, 

 and is full-fed in May. A small snail (Succinea putris) is 

 very plentiful wherever the Leucania larva frequents, and 

 has a strange propensity for concealing itself in the tubes 

 constructed by the larva, thus establishing a kind of joint 

 tenant-right or tenancy in common, which seems submitted 

 to as a matter of course, and apparently without any other 

 object than obtaining the shelter which these tubes afford. 

 The larva, when arrived at its full size, no longer avails itself 

 of its tubular shelter, but feeds exposed on the blades of the 

 grass, although still principally by night, resting by day in 

 a straight position on the flowering stalks : the head is small, 

 decidedly narrower than the '2nd segment, and porrecled ; 

 the body is cylindrical, but tapers slightly to both ex- 

 tremities : the colour of the head is pale testaceous-brown, 

 delicately reticulated with darker brown, and having six 

 darker lines : the body is ochreous-gray, the autumnal tint of 

 straw-colour having disappeared; there is a brown medio- 

 dorsal stripe, intersected throughout by a thread-like white 

 line, and having two black dots on each side of each seg- 

 ment, that is foin* on each segment, and each dot emits 

 a small hair or bristle : on each side of the body are two 

 compound stripes paler than the ground-colour, one above 

 and the other below the spiracles ; both these stripes are 

 pale yellowish gray and are rather broad, and both are inter- 

 sected throughout by a median red portion which seems to 

 have no clearly-defined boundaries ; the ventral is paler 

 than the dorsal area, and slightly tinged with green ; the 

 spiracles are oval, reddish, and edged with black ; the legs 

 are reddish ; the claspers are concolorous with the ventral 

 area, but each has two black spots and a little cloud on the 

 outside. When exposed on the grass-stalks by day, this 

 larva is subject to the attacks of a small ichneumon, which 



