PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD EKTUMOLOGIC AL ilEETiNG 899 



Several full-grown laivte were found feeding on jasmine, all being 

 detected by searching for their droppings on the ground beneath the 

 bushes, a method of detection of great utility when applied to the larger 

 larvae. This led to a search for more juvenile specimens on the foliage 

 and, whilst doing so, the presence of a very large number of empty egg- 

 shells was noticed. Over a hundred were counted in a short space of 

 time and when some of these were examined under a powerful lens, they 

 were seen to present a minute ragged hole, about the borders of which 

 was a small collection of dried debris. 



Now, the larvae of most of the Sphingidae invariably make their first 

 meal off the empty egg-shell, so that it was obvious that an early and 

 untimely fate had met the former occupants of the eggs. 



A further search revealed another interesting fact, viz., that there 

 were a large nimiber of leaves which bore the basal portion of an egg or 

 eggs still adhering to their surface and each of these presented a small 

 hole somewhere in the neighbourhood of its centre. This was easily 

 explained by the fact that, when the newly hatched larva has finished 

 all the egg-shell it can manage (it rarely manages to nibble off the base 

 of the shell, as this lies flush with the surface of the leaf and so is difficult 

 for the larva to negotiate), it proceeds to make the following meal from 

 the middle of the leaf. These tell-tale punctures in the foliage are an 

 easily-seen guide for detecting the young larvae but in the present case 

 although some fifty consecutive leaves were examined, all of which were 

 holed and on nearly all of which the basal portion of an egg was found, 

 only seven young larvae were detected, most of which were only two 

 or three days old. 



Whilst searching for the ova and larvje, an interesting phenomenon 

 was observed which served to explain the presence of the derelict egg- 

 shells. A small spider was observed standing over an egg which from 

 its bright green and translucent colour was evidently occupied by a 

 developing larva. The spider stood motionless facing the egg as if it 

 were crystal-gazing but on approaching it carefully so as not to disturb 

 and frighten it away, and making an examination of the egg with a 

 powerful lens, it was observed that the larva was quickening and could be 

 seen moving within the egg-shell. It was actually eating its way out 

 and the minute jaws could be seen enlarging the hole of exit. It was 

 obviously these movements which had attracted the spider which now 

 stood waiting until such time as the hole would become large enough for 

 it to extract the larva from the egg. Some five minutes later it suddenly 

 sprang upon the egg and in a short space of time seized and dragged the 

 mangled corpse of the larva from the egg and thereafter departed with 

 its prey. On examining the empty egg, a httle moist debris was seen 



