558 BRITSIH LEPIDOPTEEA. 



but are already much obscured by secondary hairs, and the hairs arising 

 from the tubercles themselves appear to be more numerous. There is a 

 pale subspiracular flange, broken by the segmental incisions running 

 above the legs, from the mesothorax to the 7th abdominal. The 

 spiracles black and practically indistinguishable under a two-thirds 

 lens. The ventral area is blackish-grey ; the true legs black, with pale 

 grey joints; the prolegs blackish-grey, with a grey plate on the outside, 

 the retractile terminal joint yellow, and bearing many black hooks. 

 The full-grown larva hastbe head rounded, antennae rather long, surface 

 dull, colour greyish-blue with a distinct bloom, an obliquely set oblong 

 black spot on either side of median suture above clypeal triangle 

 (these spots give the characteristic face-like appearance to the head of 

 the larva of M. neustria) ; mouth-parts shiny, black ; on sides of head 

 some darker blue-grey mottlings and a few small black spots ; many 

 fine hairs scattered over head, those on face mostly short and black, 

 those on crown, sides, and especially the downward sweeping fringe 

 just above mouth, larger, longer, and bright brown in colour. Body of 

 even thickness, slightly humped on 8th abdominal segment ; dorsal 

 area velvety-black, a very distinctly marked white mediodorsal band of 

 irregular width, narrowly bordered with the velvety black of the ground 

 colour ; this is followed by a narrow, somewhat broken, bright 

 vermilion-red streak, a somewhat broader stripe of the black ground 

 colour separates this from a second narrower and more broken red 

 streak, the black ground colour between these red streaks is, in places, 

 slightly mottled with blue ; the outer red streak is separated from a 

 broad rather greyish-blue subdorsal band by a narrow streak of the 

 ground colour ; the greyish-blue subdorsal band spreads upwards to 

 the dorsal, and downwards to the lateral, area on prothorax ; beneath 

 this subdorsal band, but still well above the spiracles, is a broad streak 

 or narrow band of bright orange, somewhat irregular in width, and 

 broken. This is also narrowly edged with black, rather more heavily 

 above than beneath ; the spiracular area (beneath the orange band) is 

 irregularly streaked and mottled with pale bluish-grey, white, black 

 and red ; the red and white mottlings show a tendency to form an 

 exceedingly irregular and broken spiracular band ; ventral area blue- 

 grey, mottled with black. The hairy coat is more scanty than that of 

 the larva of M. castrensis, but the same tendency for it to be least 

 developed on the subdorsal and upper lateral areas is noticeable, it is, 

 however, most decidedly scantier on the gaily-coloured dorsal area of 

 M. neustria than on that of the more sober-tinted M. castrensis ; on M. 

 neustria the longer dorsal hairs are black, and rise from the position 

 occupied in the early stages by the anterior trapezoidals, tbe short 

 dorsal and the lateral hairs are pale brown, not nearly so bright as 

 those of M. castrensis; those on the lateral area have the same tendency 

 as in M. castrensis to be collected into downward-sweeping tufts ; the 

 persistence of the black ground-colour, round the bases of the hairs 

 arising from the white and blue areas is as noticeable a feature in M. 

 neustria as in M. castrensis, and is especially well marked on the blue 

 subdorsal band ; the ground colour also persists strongly on the raised 

 area of the 8th abdominal segment ; there is, too, a marked tendency 

 for the black border on the upper side of the orange lateral band to 

 encroach on the blue band above it, and to form a black spot in it, at 

 or near the middle of each segment ; this spot is large and distinct on 



