MALACOSOMA CASTRENSIS. 539 



interrupted, blue, median line is traceable, strongest on thoracic and 

 hindmost abdominal segments ; a broad, but broken, and interrupted, 

 blue, subdorsal band present ; immediately beneath this is a narrow, 

 irregular and broken, red band, narrowly bordered with the black 

 ground colour ; below this the lateral area to base of prolegs is blue, 

 with a narrow interrupted streak composed of a mottling of black, red, 

 and white just beneath the spiracles ; the ventral area is velvety-black 

 much blotched on either side of median line, and towards the posterior 

 and anterior edges of the segments, with white or cream colour, and a 

 slight amount of blue. The bases of prolegs mottled black and 

 yellowish-white, the lower portion blue ; the foot is disc-like with a 

 row of 24-26 hooks on its inner edge. The true legs black with white 

 ring at base. The larva is covered with a fairly thick coat of fine soft 

 hairs of various lengths, rising more or less vertically on the dorsal 

 area, but tending to be collected into downward sweeping tufts laterally; 

 the bright blue subdorsal and lateral bands are thus rendered more 

 prominent, being less obscured by hairs than the remainder of the 

 body. The hairs on the thoracic segments rather stronger than on the 

 abdominal segments. Many hair-bases and the skin area immediately 

 surrounding them are black on the blue and white parts of the larva, 

 and to a less extent on the red also. It is this black spotting that 

 gives the blue areas a dull appearance ; the blue is particularly strongly 

 and brightly marked on the intersegmental areas, where there are 

 no hairs. Before full growth is reached (? penultimate skin) the 

 blue bands and areas are less strongly developed, and the red is 

 relatively stronger ; the blue subdorsal band, in some not quite full- 

 grown larvae, consists for the most part of a strong intersegmental spot 

 on each segment, and another in the same horizontal plane at about 

 the middle of the segment. Linne described the larva as " Pilosa, 

 subcaerulea lineis utrinque 2 lateralibus ferrugineis approximatis et 

 dorsali 1 utrinque, lata, nigro-maculata. Abdomen albo utroque 

 maculatum. Caput cinereum " (Syst. Nat., 12th ed., pp. 818-819). 

 Curtis says : " Many coloured ; an indistinct whitish dorsal line, then 

 a broad orange-brown stripe, in which, on each side of the 3rd, 4th, 

 oth and 12th segments is a black spot ; the hairs all golden-brown, 

 and longer than in the larva of 11. neustria." Newman writes : " The 

 head is of almost the same width as the 2nd segment ; the body is of 

 nearly uniform substance throughout, the back being rather convex, 

 and having the divisions of the segments distinctly marked, the sides 

 being dilated, and the dilated portions being broken up into wart-like 

 lobes by transverse folding ; the belly is rather flattened, the claspers 

 rather long, but remarkably small at the extremities ; the head and 

 body are clothed with silky hairs of various lengths, but nowhere 

 sufficiently abundant to completely conceal the skin ; the colour of the 

 head is bluish-grey, minutely dotted with black ; that of the body is 

 rich, velvety, purplish-brown, with an interrupted and irregular medio- 

 dorsal series of small and amorphous blue-grey spots, and two lateral 

 stripes on each side of the same colour, the upper of these being the 

 most perfect, and the lower containing the black spiracles ; the space 

 between these two stripes contains a series of linear orange spots, one 

 on each segment ; the ventral area black, freckled with white ; all the 

 hairs are bright ferruginous." 



Variation of larva. — Walker writes : " The adult larval vary 



