84 



THE PUPA. 



The pupa is similar in color and form to those of the vast series of 

 other Noctuid moths, and consequently is very difficult to describe in 

 a way which will permit of positive identification. The following 

 description is condensed from one drawn up by Mr. Girault based on 

 a large number of specimens. 



DESCRIPTION OF PUPA. 



(PI. XII, fig. 4.) 



Length, 14 to 23.4 mm., excluding the cremaster; average, 18.97. Body shinmg 

 reddish brown, darker above the incisions; the head, spiracles, and cremaster with a 

 very dark median line above which fades out behind; wing covers often paler. 



Head finely transversely roughened, with several oblique stride. Toward the 

 middle line in front of the insertion of the antennae are two short delicate setse aris- 

 ing from minute punctures, and just before the hind margin is an indistinct cres- 

 centic impression. Just before the insertion of the antennae are three more or less 

 distinct longitudinal lines reaching as far as the eye. 



Thorax more densely corrugated than the head, with a more or less distinct median 

 carina which shows from above as a darker median line. Prothorax impressed along 

 the anterior margin and bearing behind the middle a pair of minute median setiger- 

 ous punctures placed on minute depressed rotato-rugose pim- 

 ples; also a similar setigerous puncture just in front of the spir- 

 acle. Mesothoracic dorsum at anterior third, with a more or less 

 distinct coalescent pair of raised roughened areas; a margined 

 setigerous puncture toward the lateral margin; behind these at 

 the base of the wing covers are four shallow fovese, three of them 

 sometimes placed in a triangle. Middle of dorsum with two 

 more or less distinct, short, diverging furrows on each side. 

 Metathoracic dorsum irregularly corrugate, more finely sculp- 

 tured on the lateral lobes, with a setigerous puncture near the 

 Fig. 9.— Enlarged base, central to the lobes, with covers very finely and irregularly 

 caudal end of sculptured, highly poHshed. 



pupa (ongma ). Abdomen above irregularly transversely aciculate, the anterior 



margins of segments 4-7 coarsely punctured above, and of segments 5-7 below; 

 eighth and following segments connate, the last bearing the cremaster at its apex. 

 Tipobliquely truncate below; penultimate segment with a similar raised spaceless 

 sharply divided at the middle. 



Cremaster consisting of two slightly curved spines, their extreme tips bent at right 

 angles; very dark on basal half and paler distally (see fig. 9). Length, 0.9-1.24 mm. 



The weight of 21 pupai of the second generation freshly dug out of 

 the soil was 9.24 grams or 0.44 gram each, 64 of them together weigh- 

 ing an ounce. 



LENGTH OF THE PUPAL STAGE. 



The time passed in the ground after the larva has made its burrow 

 until the moth emerges varies from a period of less than two weeks 

 for the summer broods to about six months in the case of the hiber- 



