lepidox)terous larvte and pujue. 141 



there are reasons for believing that the yellow variety is 

 phylogenetically older, viz., the fact that the young 

 larvffi are always yellow, and that the red spots nearly 

 always occur on this variety. 



2. Further examination of the newly-hatched 

 Smerinthus larva. — In my last paper communicated to 

 this Society (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1885, Part 11.), I 

 described tlie newly-hatched larvae of Sphinx li{iustri and 

 SinerintJnis oceUatus, and in that paper will be found an 

 account of the hairy covering which these larv?e possess 

 in the early stages,' and of which traces can be detected 

 as long as the larvfe are shagreened (?. c, for the whole 

 life of Smerinthus larvae, and in all the stages except the 

 last of Sphinx Ugustri). In the newly-hatched S. ligustri 

 the body was covered with hairs or bristles, which sprang 

 from ordinary shagreen dots, while there were also two 

 lateral and two dorsal rows of longer bristles springing 

 from larger shagreen dots, which bore a special relation to 

 the larval markings which appeared later (see the paper 

 quoted above for details of this relation, &c.)- All this 

 was seen with a hand lens (Browning's platyscopic lens, 

 the lowest and the highest powers), or with the naked 

 eye ; only the more advanced stages of both larvae being 

 examined with the compound microscope. During the 

 present year (1885) I have carefully examined the newly- 

 hatched larvae of Smerintlius oceUatus and S. populi, 

 using high powers for the purpose. In correcting the 

 proof of the above-mentioned paper I was able to add a 

 short account of the results of this later work (see p. 296), 

 which gave the chief conclusions arrived at, and in which 

 I pointed out that the young stages of Smerinthus and 

 Sphinx were brought very near together. I have not yet 

 examined the young stages of Sphinx under high powers, 

 for I have not been able to obtain ova since 1884. 



I am now able to produce a figure of the apex of the 

 caudal horn in the newly-hatched larva of Sincrinthus 

 populi, looked at from above and miignilied 188 diameters 

 (see the accompanying woodcut. Fig. 1). The numerous 

 short bristles are seen to rise from small bases, — the 

 ordinary shagreen dots, — while the long bristles expand 

 basally into much larger tubercles, and the bifid extremity 

 of the horn is formed of two such tubercles, each bearing a 

 long bristle. The considerable degree of bifidity exhibited 



