THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 337 
very light and distinct. When the larve moved they were 
rather nice in their choice of food; and out of above two 
hundred larve I at last got about thirty to feed on black- 
thorn (they refused oak buds). The beginning of May they 
gave up the blackthorn for oak, and fed up fast: they were 
then from 2ths to 2ths of an inch in length, and varied 
in colour from a pale sienna (or ochre) brown to a dark 
smoky brown, and mottled (or freckled) all over with a lighter 
tint, ranging from bright lemon-yellow to a vermilion; the 
brighter the ground colour the nearer red the mottling, and 
vice versd ; the warty excrescences are now observable, two 
on each of the fifth, sixth and seventh segments. They rest 
by day, holding by the four claspers. The head a little 
elevated; the body arched. About the middle of May they 
shed their skins the last time: they are now very lethargic, 
seldom moving unless in search of food, and clinging tightly 
by the legs and claspers to their food plant. Their colour is 
now very much like an oak twig: ground colour of a rich 
sienna-brown, mottled with a light gray, and speckled at the 
sides with bright yellow or orange spots. At the end of May 
they began to go down to change, being then from 12ths to 
12ths of an inch in length.— William H. Smith; 5, Cedar 
Terrace, Sevenoaks. 
Contributions towards the Life-history of Lycena Argio- 
lus.—I am indebted to the zeal and kindness of Mr. Wellman 
and Mr. Biggs for the opportunity of describing the egg and 
the larva of Argiolus, and for information respecting its 
economy, which I have great pleasure in laying before the 
readers of the ‘Entomologist.’ Early in May Mr. Biggs 
took some specimens o* the perfect insect, in Epping Forest, 
and put them in his collecting-box: he found on his return 
home that one of these had deposited twelve eggs on the 
cork of the box; a few days later he cut out the portion of 
cork to which the eggs were attached, and took it to Mr. 
Wellman, and it is now before me. ‘The form of the egg is 
spheroid, depressed at the crown, and flattened at the base, 
by which it was firmly attached to the cork; the colour was 
a delicate very faint green, which vanished, the shell 
becoming colourless, resembling white porcelain when the 
infant larva emerged, which event took place on the 19th of 
May: the surface of the shell could then be examined with 
