THE S^AM^ ^KA^J>C' 



ENTOMOLOGIST'S 

 MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. V. 



[VOLUME XXX.] 



NOTES ON THE EARLIER STAGES OF THE NEPTICULM, 

 WITH A VIEW TO THEIR BETTER RECOGNITION AT THIS PERIOD 



OP THEIR LIFE. 



BT JOHN H. WOOD, M. B. 



{continued from Vol. iv \_Second Series'], page 274). 



THE LARVA. 



The adult larva is flattened ; the head very small, flat and pointed, 

 notched deeply behind, and nearly buried in the projecting 2nd seg- 

 ment ; segment 2 is wide, 3 still wider, and thence onward to 10 or 11 

 the size continues uniform and then diminishes rapidly, the last two 

 segments (13 and 14) being extremely small and somewhat telescoped. 

 The legs are all of the proleg character, but without the usual hook- 

 lets, and decidedly more prominent in some species than in others ; as 

 regards their distribution — there are none on 2 ; present on 3 and 4, 

 these being often the biggest in the series ; absent on 5 ; and present 

 on 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11: eight pairs in all. The usual hairs, which 

 serve the part of feelers, are well developed. Such is the general 

 form of the Nepticula larva, but I have come across in septembrella an 

 extremely interesting exception. As is well known, it makes a some- 

 what hollow or balloon-like blotch, characteristic of a Micropteryx, 

 but quite unusual for a Nepticula, and so to meet the altered conditions 

 the larva partakes much of the Micropteryx type : it has no legs, the 

 segments are deeply incised and round in section instead of oval, and, 

 most interesting of all, segments 3 and 4 are massive and distinctly 

 square-shaped. For an internal feeder the larva is rather liberally 

 furnished with characters, inasmuch as from the transparency of the 

 tissues some of the internal organs are visible, which, in the ordinary 

 run of larvae, never come into view. 



The characters arrange themselves under (1) the general colour ; 



Januaey, 1894. 



