482 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



spots rarely to be seen among larvae of the ist brood (Mathew), an 

 albino variety of larva was found feeding on aspen in the autumn 

 at Mansfield, remarkably transparent, it died in pupa ; and another 

 with red spiracles and several rather large crimson-lake spots above 

 the spiracular lines (Daws) ; aberrations of the larva of A. populi 

 found on same row of poplars at Moseley, near Birmingham, were 

 described by Barnes (Ent., hi., p. 364) as: (a) August 21st, 1867. 

 Ground colour paler than the typical examples with which it was found, 

 and having a row of pink blotches of the same size, along the 

 side by the spiracles, and another row above along the back. (b) 

 September 16th, 1867. Fullgrown, the ground-colour very pale 

 glaucous, with pink blotches as in a, except that they become 

 smaller as they approach the head. (c) September 17th, 1867. 

 Two of a pale whitish-green, with blotches along the spiracles, no 

 spots at all along the back, (d) September 17th, 1867. Also two 

 more fullgrown ones, with ground-colour much darker than any 

 before found, pink blotches along the spiracles, and two pink 

 blotches just behind the head, two about middle of back, and two 

 at base of horn. Schilde records (Ent. Nadir., vii., p. 100) a hornless 

 larva of A. populi which was brought to him in the autumn of 1880, 

 but which proved to be ichneumoned. In place of the horn, there 

 was a perfectly sound, smooth surface of skin, somewhat depressed, 

 because the two shagreen-stripes, which on the sides run upwards 

 obliquely to the place of the horn, overtopped a little at the end, 

 much as in the larvae of Apatura iris and A. ilia a part of the 

 oblique stripes project somewhat. Norman notes the larvae as 

 abounding at Forres, those found on Populus alba wonderfully 

 matching the colour of their foodplants, being of a pale glaucous- 

 white hue, sometimes blotched with red. 



Comparison of the red-spotted larvae of Amorpha populi 

 and Mimas tili.e. — Poulton notes (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1886, 

 p. 139; 1887, pp. 287 — 288) the similarity that the red markings 

 on the larvae of certain larvae of Mimas tiliae have, in their broad 

 aspects, to the earliest traces of the purple borders of the larvae of Sphinx 

 ligustri, contracting and becoming broader in the later stadia, and finally 

 appearing as somewhat elongate spots on the anterior margins of 

 the oblique stripes, and he suggests that his observations indicate 

 that these features in M. tiliae have arisen from a modification of 

 a normal coloured border. Miss Gould says (Trans. Ent. Soc. 

 London, 1892, p. 242): " The red spots on the larva of Amorpha 

 populi are unlike those on the larva of Mimas tiliae in general effect, 

 being rounder, bolder, and not in the least linear ; and their appearance 

 suggests that they are strongly protective from their resemblance to the 

 dark spots or blotches commonly seen on the leaves of the poplar. 

 Viewed from underneath, with the light shining through them, the leat 

 spots were of a red exactly corresponding with that of the red of the larval 

 spots and much the same size, etc. In M. tiliae I could see nothing 

 in the spots which would have led me to connect them with coloured 

 borders until the second larva reached its last stage, but the 

 appearance of the spots in this individual was so linear and so 

 unmistakably border-like that it seemed impossible to doubt the 

 correspondence." Miss Gould considers that it would have been 

 natural to conclude from appearances that the spots are merely 



