ATTACUS ATLAS: A LIFE-HISTORY. 33 
just a week later. Curiously, these two batches were hatched on 
the same day and hour, viz., between 6 and 9 a.m. of the 9th 
August. Already the little worms manifested the sluggish 
character common to them through life: they were slow in 
issuing from the egg; and then crawled little, and slowly. 
LARVA.—I1st age. 
The new-born larva is about 3 lines long in repose, 5 lines when 
crawling ; (fig. 6.) General colour black, with a broad band of light grey 
running down the back for the whole length, and crossed, on the side of 
each segment by two white lines. The tubercles are tall cylinders of pure 
white, tallest im front: all of them have white bases, which, uniting 
laterally, form conspicuous transverse bars of white, one on every segment. 
From each tubercle proceed several very slender black hairs, of great length. 
Head glossy black, unspotted; the clypeus grey. Anal region white. 
Feet black. Prolegs grey. 
The habit of the little worms is to sit on the under side of a 
leaf, almost always in a doubled, or sub-circular position, the head 
being bent round on either side, toward the tail. I detect no 
tendency to congregate socially, as Att. Cynthia, and S. Promethea 
do when young. 
In addition to these, I obtained, at intervals up to 80th 
August, from Mr. Watkins, between sixty and seventy larve, 
almost all new-born; so that my education has included about 
eighty-five larve in all. My first solicitude was to feed my 
tender stock. I had observed that, in most cases, the first meal 
was made of the egg-shell; if the young worm were left for some 
hours, I found the vacated shell eaten to an extent considerably 
more than was necessary for exit; even to one-fourth of the 
whole egg. 
Something more nutritive than this was necessary, of course :— 
but what? M. Braine had fed his protégés on the barberry; 
Lady Isabella Gilbert hers on apple, peach, plum, “ &c.,” but 
implies that they did best on apple. Mr. Watkins recommended 
plum. I thought it well to ask the caterpillars themselves which 
they preferred. This inquiry (as I have done with other species) 
I put to them in the following manner : 
A common flower-pot saucer I filled with an inch of sand, 
which then I made thoroughly wet, but with no standing surface- 
water. Into this I stuck one good leaf of each of the following 
F 
