Insects. 9825 



Life- Histories of British Insects. By Edward Newman. 



Pyrameis Cardui (Painted Lady). 



The egpf is laid singly on Carduiis arvensis (field thistle), generally 

 towards the end of June, and generally also low down on the plant, 

 and the young larva emerges therefrom in eight or nine days : it soon 

 draws together the points of the thistle-leaves with a very slight web, 

 more like that of a spider than the usual webs concealing Lepidoptera, 

 and tliuy, very imperfectly concealed, it feeds with great voracity, and 

 grows so rapidly as frequently to be full-fed in fourteen dajs, when it 

 rests in a straight position, but falls from its food-plant, forming a 

 compact ring if annoyed. As the larva increases in size it ascends 

 towards the flower-head, leaving its prior domicile, so that half-a-dozen 

 of these dwellings may sometimes be found on one plant, but two larvae 

 rarely, if ever : the needles or spines of the thistle-leaves, always re- 

 jected as food, are suspended in the web ; the excrement of the larva is 

 also found abundantly in the web, showing that, in a sanitary point of 

 view, Pyrameis Cardui stands rather low. Head fully as wide as the 

 2nd segment, scabrous, the crown bilobed, each lobe emitting several 

 warts and numerous bristles. Body with the segmental divisions clearly 

 marked, and having a lateral skinfold not very strongly pronounced; 

 2nd segment with numerous short dorsal spines, each of which emits a 

 terminal bristle ; 3rd and 4th segments each with two longer lateral 

 spines emitting lateral branches; 5th to 12th, both inclusive, have seven 

 branched spines, one of them mudiodorsal and slightly in advance of 

 the rest, the third on each side is on tiie skinfold : below the skinfold 

 and above each clasper is a conspicuous sesqnialterous wart emitting 

 curved bristles: the 1.3lh segment has four spines placed in a quad- 

 rangle, the posterior pair larger and more conspicuous than the anterior 

 pair; all parts of the body emit scattered hairs. Colour of the head 

 dull black; dorsal surface of the body black, the spines paler with 

 black tips and branches; the hairs white; the skinfold separating the 

 dorsal and ventral suiiace yellow ; ventral surface, legs and claspers 

 pitchy red ; spiracles above the skinfold pale in the middle; then 

 surrounded with black, then again with paler. In many individuals 

 the dorsal surface is irrorated with yellowish white dols, whicli are 

 most conspicuously collected in a double series along the back, inter- 

 rupted by a narrow mediodorsal stripe intensely black ; in these ex- 

 amples the bulbous root of each spine is pitchy red. When full fed the 

 larva spins a small but dense patch of silk on the surface of any object 

 VOL. xxjir. 3 L 



