3IO LEPIDOPTERA 



dividing the -shining dark plate, as a distinctly paler line 

 outlined with dark brown ; on the third and fourth segments 

 it soon becomes suffused with the ground colour, and its 

 course thence is but faintly indicated by the dark outlines, 

 which can best be discerned at the end of a segment. The 

 subdorsal line is of darkish brown above and rather festooned 

 in its course, thinly edged beneath with a faint paler line, 

 which is followed by a broader line of darkish freckles and 

 then by a paler line of the ground colour, and this in turn by 

 a stripe of darker freckles, on the lower edge of which the 

 spiracles are situated ; beneath these, after a line of ground 

 colour, is a paler or dirty-whitish line followed by the drab- 

 coloured ground of the under surface. 



Head brownish-drab, darkest about the mouth, with a 

 blackish-brown streak down the front of each lobe ; the 

 shining dorsal plate is margined with dark brown, through 

 which runs the pale dorsal line. The raised dots of the back 

 are dark brown, the hinder pairs a little the larger ; those 

 on the sides are rather paler brown, and those below the 

 spiracles still paler, each bearing a short bristly hair. The 

 spiracles are quite black and furnish an important character, 

 by which at a glance the larva can be separated from that of 

 A. segctum, being usually larger than the raised spots before 

 and behind them — never smaller. The warm brown of the 

 back, without a tinge of grey or green, will also help to 

 determine this larva ; this is noticeable from the time when 

 it is half an inch in length. The infant larva is tinged with 

 grey and later with greenish. July to May, on plantain, 

 lettuce, chickweed, Chcnopodium and low-growing plants 

 generally, also apparently, with that of A. segetum, which it 

 closely resembles, in turnips and other autumn and winter 

 crops, though perhaps more addicted to grass land than is 

 the latter species. The greater portion of its growth is 

 accomplished before the winter sets in. 



In addition to its exploits in the destruction of crops, this 

 larva has had the distinguished honour of causing no little 



