196 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



time taken place. Upon my return home I at once went to see if 

 these eggs had hatched, but I could find none from which a larva 

 had emerged ; thej' had, however, become almost black, and in 

 some I could see that there was evidently a larva in the interior. 



On August 11th the larvae commenced to emerge, and soon 

 after this had occurred some of them commenced to eat up the 

 egg-shell. When first emerged the larva is about two inches in 

 length, of a sap-green colol^r, with large dark brown head ; the 

 head seems to be almost as large as the egg from which the larva 

 has emerged, and is considerably larger than the second segment ; 

 the body tapers to the anal extremity. Each larva at once takes 

 possession of the upper extremity of a leaf, where it spins a small 

 web on which it stands ; it nibbles the edge of the leaf on either 

 side of this web in an irregular fashion,, but always returns to the 

 web it first spun. It grows very slowly, but its body becomes 

 of a more decided green, similar in shape to that of the larva of 

 Thecla hetulce, and is finely irrorated with yellow ; these yellow 

 spots gradually become confluent on the sixth segment, where 

 the}^ form a yellow crescent. 



On August 18tli I noticed that some seemed as if they were 

 undergoing a change of skin, as they remained with the head and 

 anterior segments raised from the leaf and had ceased feeding ; 

 immediately behind the head a yellowish appearance of the skin 

 began, which increased day by day, and on the morning of the 

 21st two had completed a moult. Never was a transformation 

 more extraordinary ; in place of a dark round head, with scarcely 

 any depression between the lobes, there appeared a pale greenish 

 red head with lobes prolonged into two long horns which stretched 

 out in front, in length equal at least to a third of the whole larva, 

 and studded by short spines ; the colours were brighter, and the 

 fine spots of yellow were more distinct. The larvae principally 

 feed at night, and remain at rest on their webs at the extremities 

 of the leaves during the day. On September 7th the larvae 

 commenced a second time to change their skin, which process 

 takes about three days. 



During the week ending Saturday, October 9th, rain fell in 

 torrents, and during the whole of this time the larvae remained at 

 the extremity of the leaves, and were more than half submerged 

 in the water hanging from the leaves. One by one the larvae 

 disappeared towards the end of October ; but I failed to trace 



