THE BLOOD BEETLE. 78 



of the year when it may not be seen. I have caught 

 it in every month except December. The larvae are 

 to be found in April and May on the Bed-straws, 

 looking when young merely like small black protu- 

 berances on the leaves. At first sight it would 

 appear that they do not possess the usual number 

 of prolegs or claspers so prominent among the 

 lepidopterous caterpillars having apparently only one 

 at the tail. Although Westwood mentions this as 

 single, it is evident to the naked eye, and much more 

 so through a glass, that it is a double one, quite as 

 much as that of a hawk-moth larva ; the other four 

 pairs are present in the shape of small tubercles on 

 the abdomen, and are seen quite plainly if the 

 creature be allowed to cross the hand held up hori- 

 zontally to the light ; each is then seen to be brought 

 into full play in the act of walking they are not so 

 easily detected when it is crawling over the herbage. 

 When seized it rolls itself up like a hedgehog, not 

 being proportionally long enough to do so after the 

 fashion of larger caterpillars. When alarmed, I 

 have known it, in various instances, to emit the 

 scarlet fluid, but it is not done so freely as by the 

 imago. It changes its skin at regular intervals, 

 appearing immediately after of a reddish hue, 

 particularly about the head and legs : it gradually 

 darkens in coloim The larva is quite as sluggish in 

 its movements as the perfect insect. All my 

 specimens were buried by June 10th, but some had 

 gone down into the earth a fortnight before. On 

 July 4th I disinterred one or two ; they were 

 then of a very light pink colour, very jelly-like in 

 appearance ; the legs were perfectly formed, and the 



