ORANGES AND LEMONS IN THE EIVIEEA. 483 



wanting in the Acrolepea citri, whose first ring is simply a darker shade. 

 The body of the larva is a yellowish-green color, and has six brown feet 

 armed with little claws darker brown. The false feet to the number of 

 eight are placed under the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth ring. They 

 are provided with an apparatus with short filaments, which allows them 

 to adhere or cling strongly to any object. The last abdominal segment 

 is conical and notched at the anal extremity ; it is provided with the 

 same apparatus as the false feet, commencing with the first thoracic 

 ring; the covering is delicately marbled with a reddish color. Pre- 

 served in alcohol the larva, which has lost its greenish tints, becomes 

 yellow, the back a darker shade, the eyes and mandibles are very black. 

 Very lively, it burrows in the bud whose covering it has pierced, and 

 leaves a round hole very apparent. Once settled in the bud it com- 

 mences by devouring the base of the stamens, then it attacks the em- 

 bryo of the fruit. It is found sometimes at the bottom of the calyx en- 

 veloping the base of the fruit, still very small, with its rings, trying to 

 get into it; moving from place to place, it emits thread, which binds the 

 stamens together and encloses its excrements. When the flower at- 

 tacked opens, the stamens are seen to be upset and the young fruit 

 pierced at several points, soon blackens and dries up, even before it is 

 as large as a grain of wheat. If the larva is disturbed, it quickly leaves 

 the inside of the flower and crawls about the outside of it ; then if there 

 seems to be danger it tries to reach another branch or the ground, drop- 

 ping down by the thread spun from itself, by which it climbs up again 

 when the danger seems past, absorbing the thread into itself as it goes 

 up. The larva being fully developed, it prepares to spin its cocoon in 

 the calyx of the flower. 



The cocoon is a gray-brown, meshes so loose that the phases of trans- 

 formation can be easily followed ; once really shut in, the caterpillar 

 shrinks rapidly. Larvse commencing their cocoons 20th and 21st of 

 September yielded a butterfly the 26th or 27th following. Its sleep 

 then lasts but six or seven days. At first the little chrysalis, in its co- 

 coon, is a greenish color on its under parts, the upper parts, and a line 

 upon its front red. After this the green and red fade and it becomes a 

 light brown, verging toward green, which darkens more and more. At 

 its birth the butterfly is almost black ; it is only later that it pales and 

 the varied designs appear upon its dress. It is motionless, antennae 

 stuck to its body, legs drawn up under it, looking like a small black 

 spindle ; when well dried it straightens its antennae, which it carries 

 pointing forward, and always in motion. It raises its head, stretches out 

 its legs, and makes its toilet ; at the slightest alarm it changes its place 

 with a jerky little flight. The designs on the wings of these butterflies 

 vary much and sometimes disappear completely to give place to a gen- 

 eral mouse-gray color, more or less silvery. 



A general description of a good specimen of this insect would be as 

 follows : 



