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Then we come to such records as this “ Arctia Caja moults from five to ten 
times,” and Boisduval tells us that many hairy species of larve vary in the num- 
ber of their moults ; and other statements have been made, apparently with a large 
foundation of truth, but all that I have met with have been, so far, vague, and 
quoted from author to author for so long a time, that it is difficult to attach much 
value to them, although it is very possible that fuller and better facts are to be 
found in journals and periodicals (especially Continental) which I have no means 
of consulting. 
Last year, my friend Mr. Hellins (Rev. J.) recorded that he had found 
certain larve of O. Antiqua vary in the number of their moults, and I determined 
this year to verify the matter, with a view to understanding it more clearly. I 
accordingly secured several batches of the eggs of this species, and have reared a 
number of larve with that object. 
Without troubling you with dates of hatching, moulting, &c., which are of no 
importance except to enable me to secure accuracy of observation, I may at once 
say that some of my larve moulted only three times, some four times, and some 
five tfmes. 
In its first skin, the larva is very definite and easily distinguishable (apart 
from size) from those in the foliowing skins, being very similar to an Arctia larva ; 
that it possesses a set of tubercles set with bristles, each tubercle and the hair it 
carries being very similar to its fellows. It differed from Arctia in one very im- 
portant point, viz., that each segment had only ten tubercles instead of twelve, as 
in Arctia ; and in a more conspicuous though less important matter, namely, that 
the lateral tubercles of the second segment were very prominent and large. But it 
has no trace of the tufts of barbed hairs afterwards carried, nor any trace of the 
scarlet tubercles of the 10th and 11th segments, though traces of these and some 
coloration are distinguishable shortly before the first change of skin. 
In the second skin it is equally distinct and definite. It is now clearly of the 
Liparis family. The scarlet cups of the 10th and 11th segments are very distinct, 
the lateral tufts of the 2nd segment are represented by a few long special pairs, and 
the dorsal brushes of the 5th and 8th segments are represented by black pads 
(fused tubercles), with a few special barbed hairs ; all the hairs are still black. 
In the third skin the majority are easily distinguishable. The sub-dorsal 
tubercles are now pink, the barbed tufts are distinct on 2nd dorsum of 5th and 8th 
segments, and in 12th segment. The tufts of 5 and 6 are dark—from fuscous to 
black ; those of 7 and 8 are pale. 
Tn the fourth, fifth, and sixth skins, the dorsal tufts are pale in colour, and 
the lateral tufts of 5th and 6th segments appear, though the latter are wanting 
in some, and in some there is a distinctly darker shade on the dorsal tufts of the 
Sth and 6th segments. 
It thus happens that in a few of these in the third skin, there is a slight 
approach to the panoply of the 4th skin: some specimens approach the appearance 
of the 5th; so that whilst the majority are abundantly distinct in these skins, ina 
few it is impossible to decide to which skin they belong. 
From the fourth skin onward, they are indistinguishable, although in the later 
