THE CASTING OF LARVJE 291 



yellow with white, in infinite nuances, are there. The other 

 " arms " are light pinkish-yellow above, with the cusps of the 

 under surface of the same puzzling white as the tentacular 

 arms ; the dorsal pair are, however, finely striped with fawn 

 and yellowish-white. The head is fawn, yellow, bluish and 

 pinkish-white, with a suspicion of greenish ; the dorsal surface 

 of the body the same, but finely striped with zebra-like mark- 

 ings of whitish, pinkish, and yellowish-fawn upon a darker 

 ground of brownish - yellow ; the "fin" paler, dusky, whitish 

 vitreous ; the under surface of the body, head, and dorsal 

 " arms " white. 



From this meagre description it will be seen that, where 

 hues are subdivided into such myriads of tints, it is impossible 

 to give exact instructions for colouring ; indeed, all such 

 instructions are merely relative, and it must be quite under- 

 stood that, as all colour owes its existence to long or short 

 waves of light and their incidence upon various substances with 

 consequent selective absorption, it is as well to choose as 

 suitable a material as possible with which to make a model, 

 and so let the resources of the artist's pigments and his 

 knowledge be aided by some material which gives an approxi- 

 mate texture ; hence it will be found that, for such things 

 as sepias, slugs, larvae, and so on, nothing gives better results 

 than the glue compositions, especially Formula 97. 



The Casting and Modelling of a Caterpillar 



Larvae (" caterpillars " or " grubs "), especially those of the 

 Lepidoptera, are so abominably done, even by the " blowing- 

 up" process and its recent improvements, and look so like 

 what they are — empty skins, with the segments of the carcase 

 as bulbous distensions following an attenuated head, the whole 

 devoid of life-like attitudes, stiff, uncompromisingly " stuffed," 



