BLUES. 



125 



placed outside a window facing north, and 

 the other, quite uncovered, stood in a cold 

 room. From time to time I watered the 

 plants to keep them alive. On the 14th 

 February I searched for the caterpillars which 

 had survived the winter, in order to put them 

 again in the sunshine. In the flower-pots 

 which had been exposed to the open air I 

 found both the plants and caterpillars dead ; 

 in the third flower-pot I found fifteen cater- 

 pillars of rather different sizes : they had 

 remained motionless the whole time, either 

 on the stems of grass, or on or under living 

 leaves of storksbill. As I had not spared 

 anything necessary for their rearing I come 

 to the conclusion that the reason the females 

 are so fruitful in autumn is that many cater- 

 pillars may be destroyed during the winter 

 without injury to the species ; and that this 

 is truly the case seems to be hown from the 

 fact, that the multitude of caterpillars which 

 are to be found in autumn does not at all 

 correspond to the number of butterflies of 

 Medon which appear in spring. Supplied 

 with fresh food, which would probably suit 

 their taste, in the sunny window, my cater- 

 pillars cast their skins several times. Although 

 I could not make any precise observations, yet 

 it is certain that the number of moultings does 

 not differ from what occurs in other species of 

 Lyccena. Of the fifteen caterpillars, seven 

 died by degrees. One, just dead, which I 

 described on the 14th March, was already 

 nearly five lines long. Its shining black head 

 had a gray face ; the body was pale green, 

 with a deep, rather narrow, posteriorly 

 attenuated, dark red medio- dorsal stripe. The 

 warts near it on each segment, with about 

 twelve unequally long, pointed, pale bristles, 

 which, on the anterior segments, stand almost 

 perpendicularly, on the middle and hinder 

 segments are directed more backwards. I 

 could not perceive that these caterpillars had 

 a cone capable of being protruded (like that 

 which we find in Lyccena Corydon, and which 

 the ants are so fond of licking). The legs 

 are black ; the elaspers of the same colour as 

 the pale belly, which, on each segment from 

 the fourth, has on each side a black streak 



reaching to the lateral wart; these streaks, 

 however, are not perceptible iu the living 

 caterpillar. The red lateral stripe is as usual 

 Having planted three vigorous plants, the 

 remaining caterpillars prospered so well that, 

 by the 8th April, I could look upon them as 

 full grown, or nearly. They devoured the 

 primate leaves, gnawed the stem of the leaf, 

 hence causing the upper part to wither, and 

 did not spare the young shoots, when the 

 plants assumed at last a very injured appear- 

 ance, and were abundantly sprinkled with 

 grains of brown-green excrement. The cater- 

 pillars crawl very slowly, whilst they spin a 

 white thread, which they fasten to the right 

 and left, and on which they fix their legs. 

 They are not easily seen on the food-plant, 

 since they are the same shade of green, and 

 even their bristles have the same colour as 

 the hairs on the leaf-stalk. 



" The full-grown CATERPILLAR is six lines 

 and a half in length. Its body is much arched, 

 and so contractile that the creature can appear 

 a line and a half shorter, whereby it naturally 

 becomes more deeply arched. The retractile 

 black head has a whitish transverse streak 

 above the mouth ; the dark palpi are whitish 

 at the base. The ground colour of the body 

 is an agreeable pale green; the deeply-seated, 

 brownish-purple coloured medio-dorsal stripe 

 reaches from the beginning of the mesothorax 

 to the beginning of the penultimate segment; 

 the rather flat anal plate is semi-oval, and in 

 the middle of each side slightly concave. On 

 each side of the body from above, obliquely 

 downwards and backwards, are faint pale 

 stripes, only just perceptible, and in many 

 points of view quite invisible. The incisions 

 of the segments are deep above, whereby on 

 each segment near the dorsal line an eminence 

 arises, which bears a multitude of white 

 bristles of unequal length, almost radiating. 

 Below this wart-like eminence is a second, 

 less conspicuous, with similar bristles. Both 

 eminences have hollows in the middle, which 

 the caterpillar can raise or depress at will. 

 The lateral wart, clothed with longer project- 

 ing bristles, in which the spiracle is not per- 

 ceptible, is purple-red, and forms the rath. r 



