THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 337 



very light and distinct. When the larvae moved they were 

 rather nice in their choice of food ; and out of above two 

 hundred larvae I at last got about thirty to feed on black- 

 thorn (they refused oak buds). The beginning of May they 

 gave up the blackthorn for oak, and fed up fast : they were 

 then from |ths to fths of an inch in length, and varied 

 in colour from a pale sienna (or ochre) brown to a dark 

 smoky brown, and mottled (or freckled) all over with a lighter 

 tint, ranging from bright lemon-yellow to a vermilion ; the 

 brighter the ground colour the nearer red the mottling, and 

 vice versa ; the warty excrescences are now observable, two 

 on each of the fifth, sixth and seventh segments. They rest 

 by day, holding by the four claspers. The head a little 

 elevated ; the body arched. About the middle of May they 

 shed their skins the last time : they are now very lethargic, 

 seldom moving unless in search of food, and clinging tightly 

 by the legs and claspers to their food plant. Their colour is 

 now very much like an oak twig : ground colour of a rich 

 sienna-brown, mottled with a light gray, and speckled at the 

 sides with bright yellow or orange spots. At the end of May 

 they began to go down to change, being then from If ths to 

 Ifths of an inch in length. — William H. S?nith; 5, Cedar 

 Terrace, Sevenoaks. 



Contributions towards the Life-history of Lyccena Argio- 

 lus, — I am indebted to the zeal and kindness of Mr. Wellman 

 and Mr. Biggs for the opportunity of describing the egg and 

 the larva of Argiolus, and for information respecting its 

 economy, which I have great pleasure in laying before the 

 readers of the ^Entomologist.' Early in May Mr. Biggs 

 took some specimens of the perfect insect, in Epping Forest, 

 and put them in his collecting-box : he found on his return 

 home that one of these had deposited twelve eggs on the 

 cork of the box ; a few days later he cut out the portion of 

 cork to which the eggs were attached, and took it to Mr. 

 Wellman, and it is now before me. The form of the egg is 

 spheroid, depressed at the crown, and flattened at the base, 

 by which it was firmly attached to the cork ; the colour was 

 a delicate very faint green, which vanished, the shell 

 becoming colourless, resembling white porcelain when the 

 infant larva emerged, which event took place on the 19th of 

 May : the surface of the shell could then be examined with 



