38 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
cream-white, which gives a curious appearance of a sort of pedestal-basis to 
the extremity of the animal. The length when crawling is about nine 
inches. 
On the same day another larva had arrived only at its first 
moult. The protrusion of the new head had been going-on 
increasingly, so long, and it was manifestly so uneasy, that I 
thought its moment must be near; and I carefully removed the 
leaf on which it rested to watch the process. But so long it 
continued to writhe, inflating its fore-parts, and turning painfully 
from side to side, that I began to fear its case was hopeless, and 
that there would be no moult, In such cases, I have before given 
mechanical aid with success. I now got a fine needle, and under 
a powerful lens I essayed to abrade the stretched skin behind the 
black old head. But these touches of mine only made it toss 
from side to side more violently, and, at length, to loosen its foot- 
hold of the midrib of the leaf on which it had clung. 
At last I reluctantly gave up hope, and left it lying on the 
leaf. In half-an-hour, however, I again looked; when, to my 
surprise and pleasure, I saw that it was more than half-moulted, 
and looking most promising. ‘There was, however, no attachment 
of the hind prolegs, and I knew there would be difficulty there. 
Thus my obstetric aid came in; for with the point of the needle, 
I held back the pushed-down skin, till the tender hind-parts, even 
to the last segment and prolegs, were duly drawn out, without the 
slightest lesion. Then it appeared a quite normal and healthy 
worm of second age. Yet it never ate more, never grew, never 
crawled,—but shrivelled and died, like so many more, in four or 
five days! 
A curious instance of self-help occurred under my eye. A 
larva of second age was evidently annoyed by the fecal pellet, 
which having been duly ejected, hung, from some accidental 
contact at the rectal orifice. I watched. Presently it elevated 
the hinder parts, and bent them round leftward. Then the head 
was brought round to the same side, deliberately, and as if with 
difficulty. At length with a jerk, and a snap, it seized the pellet 
in its jaws, and threw it out to some distance in front. 
But, one by one, they all died. ‘The one that had attained the 
third age, survived the longest, but succumbed on the last day of 
August. The larvee of this species do not in any age either fall, 
or crawl from their twigs, while healthy, as do some of their 
