18 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



which is also partly bitten through, so that the piece thus separated 

 dies and withers ; one side of the part so separated is turned over upon 

 the top of the other, and diagonally across it, the cell being thickly 

 lined with silk so that it is difficult to tear it, whilst an aperture is left 

 in front where the midrib has been gnawed through. Mathew states 

 (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1888, p. 82) that, in September, 1884, he dis- 

 covered the larval nests of Netrocoryne repanda near Sydney, each 

 composed of a leaf of Eugenia doubled over upon itself, and the edges 

 brought together until it formed a completely sheltered tent, having a 

 round opening, evidently gnawed afterwards, facing the stalk, which 

 was strongly fastened with silk to the branch. The leaves forming 

 these nests had perished and turned to bright reddish-brown, and so 

 were conspicuous objects among the green leaves of the tree. The 

 larva3 were small, but larger ones were found in October in similar 

 tents. The small larvae of the large Australian Trapezites symmomus 

 spin little white silken shelters in the concave side of a Cladium leaf 

 about halfway down the stem, but the larger ones (found at the same 

 time) hide by day low down amongst the stems of the plant, almost 

 at the roots. Trimen notes (South African Butts., iii., p. 260) that the 

 larva of Hesperia forestan feeds on Robinia pseudacacia, fastening the 

 pinnae of a leaf together with silk and feeding in the shelter thus 

 formed. It is difficult to surmise what useful purpose is served by the 

 larvae making, in some cases, as described above, their hiding-places con- 

 spicuous, by biting off a piece of leaf and allowing the dead brown 

 part to point out, as it were, the whereabouts of the larva. 



The cleanly habits of the larvae of our British " skippers : ' must be 

 known to almost every young lepidopterist. Our own observations on 

 this subject were made many years ago on the cleanliness exhibited in 

 the rolled grass tubes used as hiding-places by Adopaea flava, and in 

 the little tented homes made of Lotus leaves by the larvae of Nisoniades 

 tages. Since then similar observations have been made on the larvae 

 of Cyclopides palaemon, the only doubtful species in this respect being 

 Urbicola comma, whose cleanly habits are somewhat in question. The 

 habit of shooting the pellets of excrement to a distance by some 

 species is also well known, as it occurs in many different 

 superfamilies of the lepidoptera. As already noted (Nat. Hist. 

 Brit, hep., i., pp. 40-41), the operation is performed by the larvae of 

 certain moths by means of the "infra-anal lobe" and the " paranal 

 forks," the latter specially well-developed in Cerurids, etc., but 

 these structures appear to be absent in butterfly larvae, the 

 excrement being thrown away by the "anal comb," which is, however, 

 possibly homologous with the paranal forks. The anal comb of the 

 larva of Thymelicus acteon has been already excellently illustrated in 

 this work (antea, vol. viii., pi. xviii.). Sich has observed that the larvae 

 of Nisoniades tages keep their tents beautifully clean, shooting their 

 excrement far away ; one larva noticed doing this, shot the pellet on 

 to a window-pane thirteen inches away with such force that the pellet 

 rebounded some inches ; the pellets always seemed to be dry when 

 excreted, and are caught on the teeth of the anal comb preparatory to 

 being shot off. Frohawk notes that the larva of Cyclopides palaemon 

 has the power of casting its excrement sideways with considerable 

 force, sending it a foot or more, undoubtedly in order to prevent it 

 fouling its domicile. Scudder and other authors note the usual clean- 



