510 BBITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



hairs (Bacot). Newman (Entom., vi., p. 265) describes the larva as 

 follows : Head scarcely narrower than prothorax, subglobose ; body 

 almost uniformly cylindrical, covered with silky hairs. Colour of head 

 almost black, of the body intense velvety black, having on each side a 

 narrow interrupted yellow-white stripe, which, on each segment, emits 

 a branch towards the dorsum at right angles with itself. On the 8th 

 abdominal segment, these branches nearly, and sometimes quite, unite 

 on the back, and midway between each two branches is another aborted 

 branch, sometimes reduced to a mere spot. The shorter hairs on the 

 dorsal surface are rich sienna-brown, very bright and vivid, and 

 disposed in two longitudinal series of subquadrate and nearly contiguous 

 patches ; the longer hairs are mostly on the sides, paler and tipped 

 with grey ; the true legs black and glabrous, the ventral prolegs red, 

 the anal prolegs pitchy-black. The ventral surface is smoke-coloured. 

 Some years afterwards Newman (British Moths, p. 42) gave another de- 

 scription of the larva in which he states that "the larva is slightly hairy, 

 has three white spots, and two red warts on the back of each segment, 

 and with a pale grey line on each side." Comparing larvae obtained in 

 North Wales, with this description, Perkins observes that they have 

 "no red warts on the back, have four, two, or no white spots, have a 

 yellow line instead of the pale grey lateral stripe, interrupted at each 

 segment where it turns at right angles halfway up the back and forms 

 the border to a square velvety patch of short orange-brown hairs ; the 

 claspers coral-red." Buckler figures (Larvae, &c, pi. xlviii., fig. la) 

 the larva before the first moult — with green ground colour, grey 

 dorsum, and black subdorsal segmental patches. It is exceedingly 

 different from the figures (lb, \c and Id) of the larvae in their mature 

 attire. In all the latter the ground colour is black with a slaty tinge, 

 but the size of the subdorsal patches, the amount of yellow surrounding 

 them, and the consequent variation in the quantity of the ground 

 colour exposed are very noticeable. Barrett observes that the larvae are 

 not very variable, though the colour of the large subdorsal spots varies 

 from yellowish-white to red. 



Comparison of larvae of L. var. arbusculae and L. lanestris. — 

 In the larva of L. var. arbusculae (from Arolla), the white bands of the 

 larva of typical L. lanestris are broken up into spots ; it has yellow 

 instead of red prolegs, and a shiny instead of a dull head. The central 

 suture of the head is dull -brown instead of white. Traces of the 

 broken double mediodorsal line of L. lanestris are represented only by 

 the anterior pair of spots on the meso- and metathoracic segments. 

 The anterior and posterior extensions at right angles to the 

 longitudinal subdorsal band are represented only by two disconnected 

 spots, one before and one behind each patch of dorsal fur. The sub- 

 dorsal band itself is also broken up into a series of disconnected white 

 spots. [In spite of the form of the foregoing notes, which suggest that the 

 larva of L. var. arbusculae is a direct derivative of the larva of L. lanestris, 

 I am inclined to think that exactly the contrary is the fact, and that 

 our larval form of L. lanestris has developed its still broken bands from 

 the disconnected spots of the larva of L. var. arbusculae. The hairs 

 and the short dorsal fur-like urticating hairs of the latter are exactly 

 as in the larva of L. lanestris'] (Bacot). 



Pupation. — The cocoons are usually firmly fixed to twigs of white- 

 thorn or blackthorn, sometimes two or three cocoons near together. 



