THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



prominent, somewhat hemispherical, situated at the fore-corners of 

 the head. Occiput rather broad, rough, bearing some long hairs. 

 Top of head as a whole slightly convex. Prothorax collar-like, a 

 dark patch in centre, hind-margin convex. Mesothoracic spiracles 

 dark, very conspicuous. Mesa- and metanotum variegated with 

 lighter and darker tints. Legs long, slender, joints darker ; femora 

 and fore- and mid-tibiae ringed with darker sepia bands ; fore- and 

 mid-tibi£e hairy, hind tibiae rather spiny; fore-legs about 10 mm. 

 long, mid-legs about 11 mm., hind-legs nearly 16 mm. Wing-cases 

 about 5 mm. long. Abdomen broad and somewhat flattened ; with 

 pale, long, slender, recurved mid-dorsal spines on segments six, seven 

 and eight, and a small one on five hidden by the wing-cases ; a pair of 

 lateral spines on eight and nine, those on eight being of moderate 

 length, those on nine conspicuously long, equal in length to the last 

 two segments; two or four dark dots on the dorsal part of' several of 

 the hinder segments ; also lines of paler or darker suffusions on the 

 dorsal surface, which vary considerably according to the depth of 

 colouring of the specimens ; ventral surface of nymph-skin fairly 

 uniform in colouring. Anal appendages short, hairy ; upper, tri- 

 angular, pointed ; laterals, shorter, and more slender ; loioer, more 

 than half as long again as upper, and flat when looked at from the 

 side. It is somewhat difiicult to describe the hairiness of a dried 

 nymph-skin, consequently it has been little referred to. 



[Material. — (i.) A nymph-skin from which a male imago emerged 

 on July 28th, 1903 ; (ii.) a skin of a nymph, taken in Richmond Park, 

 Surrey, from which a male was bred on July 10th, 1903 ; (iii.) other 

 nymph-skins found under such conditions as to admit no doubt of 

 their identity. Nos. i. and ii. were the specimens chiefly employed. 

 The figure is enlarged a little over four times.] 



THE EAELIER STAGES OP COLIAS HECLA. 

 By W. G. Sheldon, F.E.S. 



So far as I am aware, the only lepidopterist who has written 

 anything on the earlier stages of this beautiful Arctic species is 

 Staudinger, and his brief note is in one important respect 

 inaccurate. 



Staudinger, who passed the summer of 1860 in the north of 

 Norway, during his sojourn there met with Colias hecla abun- 

 dantly, near Bossekop, in the Alten Fjord. He states: "the 

 headquarters of this species was a flat sandy peninsula in the 

 bed of the Eiver Alten " ; in this place " Phaca lapponica, 

 De Candolle, the undoubted food-plant, grew very abundantly, 

 and I noticed the females ova-depositing thereon." 



The Phaca lapponica of De Candolle is, according to the 

 'Conspectus Florae Europae' of Nyman, now known as Oxytropis 

 lapponica, a plant which, so far as I know, does not occur at 

 Bossekop ; at any rate, I carefully examined the headquarters of 



