28 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



friend Mr. Bignell, who kindly undertook to look after them 

 during uiy absence on three weeks' leave. On my return on 

 the 18tli of October, I relieved Mr. Bignell of his charge, and 

 was surprised at the small progress they had made in that 

 time, as 1 imagined they would feed up and turn to pupae 

 this year, and consequently that they would have grown 

 more rapidly. Mr. Bignell had supplied them with a 

 growing plant, on which they were feeding when T returned, 

 so they could not have been more carefully attended to. On 

 the 23rd of October I look many of these larvae feeding 

 at large, which were about the same size as those reared 

 from the egg, and on the 30th of the month I took more, 

 some of which were a trifle larger than any I had previously 

 seen, and I observed them exposed on the Hypericum up to 

 the 15th ult., after which date I do not find any notice 

 of them in my journal. There had been several sharp frosts 

 prior to this. The larvae I have in-doors (with the exception 

 of two or three that still continue to feed slowly, and seem 

 nearly full grown) have crawled to the top of their cage, 

 where they appear determined to remain for the rest of the 

 winter. I have shaken them down once or twice on their 

 food-plant, but they always crawl back to the old position. 

 It is a hard-feeling larva to the touch, and one, I should say, 

 difficult to describe accurately. Some of mine vary from a 

 dark chestnut-brown to a pale putty-colour. When feeding 

 they do not often wander off their food ; and this autumn 

 brood shows a decided preference for the seeds of their food- 

 plant, although they do not altogether refuse the leaves, and 

 in the spring, of course, will have nothing else. — Gervase F. 

 Mathew ; Admiralty House, Devonport, December 6, 1871. 



Description of the Larva of Cerigo Cytherea. — The head 

 is narrower than the 2nd segment, highly glabrous, and with 

 tumid cheeks; it is furnished with a few scattered hairs; the 

 body is smooth, velvety, and uniformly cylindrical, the 

 division of the segments being marked with considerable 

 distinctness, and the segments themselves being transversely, 

 but not deeply, divided into sections : the entire colour is 

 pale bislre-brown ; the head being somewhat hyaline, and 

 liaving a few darker marks arranged in two longitudinal 

 scries near the median suture of the face; the body is some- 

 what velvety, and the brown colour slightly tinged with 



