﻿234 [March, 



These most interesting little fellows continued to feed and grow, and as they 

 began now to eat away the whole thickness of the leaflets forming their caves, 

 their ravages exposed their bodies to the light, and as soon as this happened they 

 moved off to new habitations ; this change of residence always took place at 

 night, though from the slow and deliberate pace at which they moved, it could 

 hardly be called a " flitting." 



Throughout July these larvae consumed a great quantity of food, so that I had 

 frequently to renew my plant of Lotus, but still they hid themselves, and kept 

 quiet so persistently, that I no longer wondered how it was that no one had ever 

 found this common species for me, even though its food-plant was known. 



After various moultings, I secured three more figures of them at intervals, 

 and by July 31st, they had attained their full growth. At this time the larva is 

 nearly three-quarters of an inch in length, with the back a little arched and the 

 belly rather flattened, being just of the same form as when younger ; the body 

 very plump, and thickest in the middle segments, the segmental folds distinct, 

 each segment also sub-divided into five portions, the broadest one in front ; the 

 head is somewhat heart-shaped, and flattened on the face : the colour of the body 

 is rather more of a yellowish-green than before, the minute raised points blackish, 

 the dorsal line a darker green, and the sub-dorsal paler stripe delicately edged 

 above and below with a fine faintly darker line ; the anterior pair of tubercular 

 dots just perceptible on each segment, but only with a strong lens ; the spiracular 

 region forming a slight ridge of paler whitish-green, the spiracles very small and 

 red in colour : the head is purplish-brown as before, but with the addition of an 

 ochreous streak from the crown down the front of each lobe, united below by 

 another broad transverse streak at some distance above the mouth, and also of a 

 spot of the same colour on each cheek. 



Having sent one to Mr. Hellins, I found my two remaining larvae had, early in 

 August, fairly left their hiding places, and were ascending the sides of the cylinder, 

 first one and afterwards the other ; presently, having gained a footing on the green 

 leno cover at the top, they began to spin threads of silk and to pucker up the leno 

 into a fusiform shape ; the foundation threads were very strong and thick, spun 

 parallel to each other, in a little transverse series at each end of the retreat : the 

 larva that was on the leno first contrived to complete its hybernaculum ; but the 

 other, after spinning the two bundles of parallel threads to form the two ends of 

 its intended winter quarters, was unable to find the leno slack enough for puckering 

 into the required shape, and began again the next day at another part, but was 

 again defeated, and finally relinquished its attempt on the leno, and went below 

 amongst the plants ; and some weeks afterwards I found it on the earth killed by 

 mildew ; the same fate befel the one which I sent to Mr. Hellins. 



The other slumbered safely through the winter, until early in April, 1869, a 

 ray of sunshine reached it, and I saw the larva coming out as though in distress, 

 to escape either the warmth or the strong light ; whereupon I shifted the glass to 

 a pot containing a violet plant, and the larva crawled down the sides till it found 

 the violet leaves, and then selecting two near the bottom in a shady position, in 

 an hour it had spun a retreat between them as they lay horizontally one below the 

 other ; but I suppose this operation exhausted its strength, for when, after waiting 

 in vain for the butterfly to appear at the proper time, I pulled the leaves asunder, 

 I found it had died without having become a pupa. — Wm. Buckler, Emsworth, 

 Jamuwry, 1870. 



