markings and attitudes of lepidopteroits larvce. 287 



segment is divided. The secondary annulation began 

 in the first stage, and is present throughout larval life. 

 There are eight of these annuli on each of the segments 

 that bear the oblique stripes, except the 8th abdomnial. 

 Where this latter segment is crossed by the upper part of 

 the 7th stripe entering the base of the horn the annula- 

 tion is not present, and the adjacent areas are not sepa- 

 rated by furrows (between the annuli on other segments), 

 and therefore fuse at an early date. The 7tli stripe is 

 also much whiter and more conspicuous than the others. 

 As the larva advances in this stage the subdorsal and 

 the stripe above it become indistinct, but the 8th stripe 

 becomes more prominent, and is especially well seen as 

 a V when the larva is looked at from above. The head 

 is shagreened, as in previous stages. 



But the most interesting fact about this stage is_ the 

 appearance of the purple borders to the white_ stripes. 

 These were never present at ecdysis, _ and in _ some 

 instances they did not appear at all in this stage (in the 

 case of very light varieties). So also the time at 

 which they made their appearance varied greatly, and 

 the extent to which they were developed. The stripes 

 are linear and very narrow: they first appear as a 

 brownish rather than purple edge to the central part of 

 the 1st and 7th stripes. Then they appear in front of 

 the others nearly at the same time, and without any 

 definite order. It seemed that the 1st stripe gained a 

 border rather before the 7th. The purple edge is not a 

 modification of the white stripe, but is distinctly due to 

 a darkening of the ground colour. So far from the 

 shagreen dots having any relation to the border, they 

 are either absent from it or very small (which is also true 

 of the ground colour anterior to the whole length of the 

 stripe). There is nothing spot-like in the first appearance 

 of the border ; it is always very narrow and linear. Its 

 first appearance confirms the view that I expressed last 

 year (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., pt. I., 1884), i. e., that 

 the border is a modification of the ground colour in 

 front of the white stripe, and is not due to the drawing 

 out of patches of colour that appear in this position : 

 in fact that the border is linear primarily and not 

 secondarily. Kleemann states that the larvae acquire 

 the purple borders in the fourth stage, and Weismann 

 says that he has observed the same thing._ Nearly all 

 my larva3 acquired the borders in the third stage, as 



