THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 481 



diamond-shaped. Next below the subdorsal line is a deep 

 black stripe, having an interrupted yellow line down its 

 centre, and bordered beneath by a similar line. Below this 

 the lateral surface is smoky gray, minutely dotted with 

 yellow ; the spiracular line is yellowish, and intermediate 

 between it and the above-mentioned black stripe is a much 

 interrupted yellow line. The lateral surface of the 3rd and 

 4th segments is grayish, thickly dotted with yellow. The 

 usual tubercles are conspicuous, and each of them is some- 

 what thickly tufled ; at each extremity of the larva are a few 

 scattered hairs, much longer than any of the others. Of the 

 dorsal tubercles the 3rd and 4th segments have the anterior 

 pair the largest, and coloured bluish gray, the posterior being 

 dull red; on the other segments the posterior pair are the 

 most conspicuous, the anterior pair being very small. On the 

 5th to 11th segments both pairs of tubercles are dull red, the 

 posterior pair being seated on the subdorsal line and project- 

 ing into the black band below it. All the tubercles on the 

 12th segment are bluish gray, as are also those on the lateral 

 surface. The hairs are very pale grayish, and have a slight 

 silky gloss. The ventral surface is dull smoky gray, with a 

 few yellow marks on each side of every segment after the 4th. 

 The legs are black ; the claspers pale reddish gray on their 

 outer, almost colourless on their inner, side. The favourite 

 food of these larvae is a common lichen (Parmelia caperata), 

 which grows in great abundance on all the trees in the 

 locality where I captured them. They will, however, eat 

 other species of lichens. They never fed very voraciously, 

 and were always very restless when feeding, scarcely ever 

 settling down to one patch of lichen for any length of time. 

 They appeared to extract nourishment from places where the 

 coaling of lichen was so slight as to be quite invisible to the 

 naked eye. All the larvae we captured this year were beaten 

 from oak; but in the spring of 1872 Mr. Wilbey took them 

 in some abundance on beech, but failed to rear the imago. 

 Probably they feed on the lichens growing on most species 

 of forest trees. I am indebted to Mr. Wilbey for an interesting 

 fact respecting this larva. For some time we neither of 

 us could account for the diminution in the number of our 

 larvae. 1 discovered two empty skins bitten in half; I could 

 not conjecture by what, as 1 had seen no slugs or other 



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