218 Dr. Wallace on 
larvee, when nearly full fed, mutilated in a very strange manner ; 
they were resting on the leaf as usual, but with head erect and 
face looking black. On closer inspection I found the face eaten 
away, nearly gone, and a brownish ichor exuding from the wound ; 
in a few days they died, starved, being unable to eat. I was 
puzzled for some days, but observing that this always took place 
in the night, and that I never found any larve so attacked in the 
day-time, I suspected a new enemy other than I knew of. Taking 
my lantern I sallied out when dark to make a close examination ; 
{ found the common large garden Carabus violaceus fastened to the 
face of a larva sucking its juices; whether it selected that part 
for attack I know not, but I am inclined to think, from the 
habit of the larva to turn round and face any object which 
touches it, after the manner of the larva of the puss-moth, and 
even to open its jaws as if to bite, that when the Carabus ap- 
proached the larva, it presented its face as if to attack and was 
then pinned by the Carabus, who when he got his jaws in would 
soon suck the juices, which exude very freely. This enemy 
was very quickly and easily got rid of. I sunk some pots in the 
ground and placed therein pieces of meat as baits; the Carabi 
came in numbers, tumbled in, and could not get out. Other 
insect enemies are various parasitic Diptera, which lay their eges 
in the body of the larva; one is a species of V'achina, another a 
larger, and another a smaller fly. It is also asserted that the 
ichneumon of the common cabbage-butterfly will deposit its eggs 
in the body of the larva of B. Cynthia, but this I have not observed. 
With reference to these enemies I would make this observation, 
that when acres of ground produce thousands and millions of 
cocoons the loss from these enemies will be comparatively trivial, 
because it will always be worth while to examine the cocoons soon 
after they are completed, it being an easy matter to detect the 
sound from the unsound; and those which are ichneumonised wi!l 
be so treated (probably at once sent to be wound off) as to 
ensure the death of the parasite. Furthermore, it is highly 
probable that the habits of these parasites may not sufficiently 
coincide with the habits of our larvz to enable them for succeed- 
ing generations to establish themselves as regularly parasitic on 
Bombyx Cynthia. 
I said it was easy to separate the sound from the unsound co- 
coons: it is done in this way; first, the silk of the unsound cocoons 
is darker, often of a dead rusty-brown colour ; secondly, the cocoon 
is often much softer; thirdly, when shaken fourteen days after its 
commencement, the pupa within does not rattle; this is an un- 
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