12 L January,' 



80 extraordinarily dark, that at first sight its species is hardly recognisable j the 

 normal orange bands on the thorax and abdomen are reduced to a slender thread only 

 just visible under a strong lens. My other curiosity is a lapidarius, $ , from Hastings, 

 with a distinct, and even conspicuous, brownish margin to the pubescence of the 

 thorax in front and behind, and with the black of the abdomen also shading off into 

 a similar brownish colour, which, in its turn, shades off into the red on the apical 

 segments. So little variation has hitherto been recorded in the females of lapidarius 

 that it requires some faith to accept this as one j but all its structural characters 

 seem to indicate that species, and to separate it from any other which its colouring 

 might suggest. 



Kugby : October, 1892. 



NOTES ON THE EAELY STAGES OF COLIAS MYALE, L. 

 BY F. W, HAWES. 



For the material enabling me to make the following descriptions, 

 I am largely indebted to my friend Mr. H. Williams, who, as will be 

 recorded in the "Entomologist" of January, 1893, succeeded in bringing 

 through two specimens of the imago out of a number of larvae from 

 ova laid in September by the captured female. 



The egg of C. Syale, which is very similar to that of G. JEdusa, 

 being perhaps a little fuller at the middle, is laid on various species of 

 Trifolium and Medicago, doubtless singly in a natural state, although 

 in clusters in confinement, and, by preference, on Medicago lupulina. 

 It is worthy of notice that the egg of Myale bears a curious likeness 

 to the early forming flowers of this common plant, so that it is diffi- 

 cult to distinguish any ova which may be laid on or near the flower 

 head. The parent female of both JEdusa and Syale appears to take 

 full advantage of this likeness to lay clusters of eggs either on or 

 very near to the yellow balls of blossom ; in one case (of Hyale) as 

 many as sixty-five ova being crowded on to the leaflets immediately 

 surrounding one blossom. 



The egg hatches in about eight days, and the newly-emerged larva 

 appears of a unicolorous leaden hue, in reality, deep dull green. By 

 an undeviating instinct, it finds out the centre of the leaf, and takes 

 up a position exactly along the midrib, and so positive is this habit, 

 that it was no uncommon thing to find from four to six of these little 

 larvse stretched out head to tail along the middle of one small clover 

 leaf. At this early period, without moving their hind claspers, they 

 merely scoop out small portions of the leaf (always on tha upper-side), 

 and as the li,rvse grow th(ise attacks on the cuticle are extended until 

 small holes ;,ppear throu^'h the leaf. 



After the first moult, ^he head assumes a paler tint, and one 



