TRIFID^. 263 



Larva hairy, moderately stout, tapering to each extremity ; 

 the spots tubercular and emitting bunches of rather short 

 hairs, incisions deeply cleft; head small, rounded and shining. 

 Ground colour dark olivaceous-grey, broadly and transversely 

 banded with deep velvety black ; a conspicuous pale lemon- 

 yellow subdorsal blotch on each segment, interrupting the 

 transverse black band, which is also interrupted laterally by 

 a shining tubercle ; spiracles prominent, whitish ; below each 

 of them is a red blotch tinged beneath with yellow ; these 

 blotches unite when the larva is contracted, and form a stripe ; 

 second segment with a red transverse dorsal blotch ; tubercular 

 spots emitting bunches of rather short, mixed, blackish and 

 yellowish hairs. Head black with a yellow V on the face ; 

 under surface yellowish or pale brown, legs dark brown ; 

 pro-legs tipped with brown. fCharles Fenn.) 



Dr. Chapman says, that when just hatched it is hardly 

 distinguishable from the allied species ; after the first moult 

 it may readily be distinguished ; it is reddish-grey much 

 blackened by the black hairs and raised spots or tubercles ; 

 there is a yellow longitudinal line beneath the spiracles and 

 a yellow transverse line across the back of the third segment. 

 After the second moult, as it grows, the dorsal region between 

 the spots becomes paler, sometimes nearly white, the spots 

 conspicuously black, and the yellow lateral line broader. 

 After the third moult the fifth and twelfth segments are 

 rather disproportionately large, the colouring remaining much 

 the same ; but after the next change of skin this swelling of 

 the two segments disappears, and shorter whitish barbed 

 hairs appear, plentifully intermixed with the black ones ; 

 from this the adult colouring is soon assumed. Some are 

 almost creamy white, others have a white trefoil-shaped mark 

 on each segment, and some have even less white colouring ; 

 but the hairs are mixed, black and white, and give their own 

 tone to the apparent colour. (Condensed from Dr. Chapman's 

 Memoir.) 



July, August, and September, on heather, sweet-gale, birch. 



