CUPIDO MINIMUS. 117 



which the pale green ground colour of the egg can be well seen ; 

 because the rest of it is closely covered by a raised white network of 

 rhomboidal meshes, which, when viewed in profile, are seen to stand 

 out boldly from the shell (Hellins). Of a glaucous hue, very perfectly 

 reticulated, the meshes standing out in relief, perfectly rhomboidal, 

 and knobbed at the junction of their angles (Gedge). The egg is 

 figured by Clark (Ent. Bee, xii., p. 282, pi. vi., fig. 7). 



Habits of larva. — So soon as the young larva hatches, it bores 

 through the calyx and corolla of a flower of Anthyllis vulneraria, and 

 makes for the young ovary. At various stages of growth it will eat 

 stamens, anthers, and large portions of calyx and corolla, in going 

 from one flower to another when it is older, but its favourite and normal 

 food is the ovary when it is young and succulent, afterwards the seeds, 

 and its start and finish are so timed that at first it has for pabulum 

 the young ovary, afterwards seeds of increasing age, finishing with 

 fully -developed, but not hard and ripened, seeds; the larva, being full- 

 grown, leaves the flower-heads only a day or two (in hot weather) before 

 the heads are ripe, and the dead flowers containing the ripe pods are 

 ready to drop off. Up to this date it is only where there has been 

 more than one larva in a flower-head that any outward evidence of its 

 presence appears (Chapman). The larva leaves the egg by an irregular 

 aperture in the middle of its upper surface, usually bores a hole at 

 once through the downy calyx and corolla of Anthyllis vulneraria into 

 the flower, so as to reach the immature seed-vessel on which it feeds. 

 Sometimes, however, a larva begins by eating the lip of the corolla, 

 and then goes down to the base of the style, and thus to the ovary ; 

 the latter is certainly the part of the flower preferred, and, whilst 

 small, the larva feeds thereon, hidden within the corolla, and leaving 

 one flower when cleared and entering another. When the larvae have 

 attained some size they pierce the side of the calyx and corolla, and 

 thrust in the head and thorax to get at the seed-pod with its single 

 seed, for the whole of their bodies cannot now be entirely contained in 

 the corolla, and they leave the hinder part outside, curled round the 

 flower, but still well-hidden among the dense bunch of flowers that 

 form each head, so that they may now be found with their heads 

 thrust into the flower, the hinder part hanging out, but difficult to 

 distinguish among the inflorescence. In about ten days, in a warm 

 summer, they are barely half -grown, but, during the next fortnight^ 

 advance very rapidly, their colours assimilating, at this time, remarkably 

 well with the changing colours of the corolhe of their food-plant 

 (Hellins). When almost fullfed, and at rest, the larval head is entirely 

 withdrawn, and the thoracic segments, pressed down ventrally, form 

 a quite rounded front, whilst the body has an arched appearance, as 

 described by Newman in comparing this larva with a Chiton. The 

 anterior end of the body is, in this position, much wider and rounder 

 than the posterior, the front abdominal segments being the widest. 

 Its small, plump, arched body is settled flat down on the resting- 

 surface, the yellowish colour, with faint red dorsal, subdorsal and lateral 

 lines, being much modified by the numberless little black hair-bases, yet 

 giving the whole a remarkably effective protection among the flower- 

 heads of its food-plant. On the flower-heads themselves, many of the 

 larvse bring themselves quite inside a flower, others only the anterior 

 segments, whilst the posterior hang outside, but really, these latter are. 



