MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. .-,29 



locally plentiful, being restricted, as far as I have observed, to two small 

 areas of rather more than one acre in extent. The country for some miles 

 round furnished no specimens. 



The imago is too well known to need a further description here, but I have 

 shown in the plate figs 7, 8 and 9 the upper sides of male and female and 

 underside of female. They are generally seen in small groups of three or 

 four settling on or fluttering round low bushes or herbs at the corners of 

 intersecting pathways or roads. 



The ova3 shown in the plate, fig. 1, are the size of the head of a No. 10 

 entomological pin and are not unlike the spineless shell of Echinus esculentus. 

 They are dome-shaped, flattened on the resting surface and present a pit 

 at the apex of the dome. The upper surface is mamillated and finely pitted 

 between the mamillar processes. In colour they are a dead- white and are 

 exceedingly beautiful objects under a low power microscope. They are 

 deposited usually on a dead twig in juxta-position to the food-plant or 

 they may be laid on the bract at the base of a leaf-stalk. 



On the 5th day the larvoe hatch out and appear first as tiny, hairy, 

 mahogany-red creatures. The head from first to last moult, is a shiny jet- 

 black. The hair of the first skin is coarse and white with the exception of 

 eight black hairs which project horizontally back from the rear of the 

 thirteenth segment. 



The full-grown larva is a prettier object than the generality of its class. 

 Fawn is the prevailing colour, but the mahogany-red tint persists on the first 

 three segments and on the dorsum of the 11th, 12th and 13th, there is how- 

 ever a small patch of fawn on the sides of the first two segments. 



There are fine double-lines of mahogany-red along the back and sides and 

 a row of dots of the same colour extending from the 4th to the 10th seg- 

 ments. On the dorsum of the second segment is a shiny, black chitinous 

 plate beneath which the head of the larva is retracted when alarmed. 



The head is usually quite visible, especially when the larva feeds, thus 

 differing from most lyceenid larva?. On the back of the twelfth segment, 

 the larva bears two fleshy pillars surmounted by three stiff bristles, arranged 

 in an equilateral triangle. 



These pillars are hollow and from them project fine hairs. When the 

 larva is irritated, a fleshy tongue is flickered in and out of these with great 

 rapidity, very much in the manner of a snake's tongue. A diagram 

 of these pillars is shown in fig. 2, the latter representing the tongue pro- 

 jected and showing the fine hairs attached to its tip. 



When the larva is at rest, it will project the tongue like processes in and 

 out, about every ten seconds and will continue doing so for long periods. 

 I was not able to determine whether this action was protective in nature or 

 for the purpose of signalling up ants. I noticed that it was carried on for 

 a long time preparatory to spinning the cocoon. Like most lycrenid larvfe 



