PHRYXUS LIYORNICA. 151 



Habits of larva. — The larvae of the summer brood usually 

 emerge from the egg in June and feed up through that month and 

 July, pupating from about the middle of July until August, but 

 Bellier-de-la-Chavignerie notes that he found larvae feeding on 

 Rumex acetosella in June and July at Florae, at the same time that 

 imagines were observed on the wing. The larvae are more or 

 less polyphagous, and Boisduval observes that they are often found 

 in France by the sides of the roads and in fields, on plants that 

 are not at all nearly allied, and that they are often recorded as feeding 

 on the tender succulent shoots of various kinds of fuchsia, e.g., 

 Gouley took one on fuchsia at the beginning of July, 1866, at Calvados, 

 the example pupating and the imago emerging on October 3rd, 

 whilst Lucas found some on fuchsia in the gardens of the Parisian 

 suburbs, in 1856, &c. Godart records larvae captured, in the latter 

 year, on Galium verum, at St. Cloud, whilst Allard remarks that 

 they are not rare on Euphorbiaceae at Biskra, where they are larger 

 and brighter than those taken in mid-France. Rambur notes 

 {Cat. Lep. Andal., p. 131) the larvae as being almost polyphagous 

 and sometimes so abundant in the plains of Malaga, along the 

 fields, that one may collect some hundreds in a short time. Chaumette 

 records the larva on vine on June 19th, 1846, on Les Mousquines, near 

 Lausanne. In Sicily the larvae are said to feed almost entirely on 

 vine, and Milliere observes that those of the first brood are fullfed 

 at the end of June, and, as the pupal stage lasts only about a 

 fortnight, the imagines emerge about the middle of July. Very few 

 larvae have been recorded as taken in the British Islands. A 

 few were taken in 1870, of which one, captured near Exeter on 

 July nth, was recorded as a larva of CeleiHo gallii (E.M.M., vii., p. 

 61), and which spun up and produced an imago on August 18th 

 (Hellins). On July 4th, 1870, three larvae were taken on vine near 

 Ryde, and four more on 26th on vine and garden centaury ; the 

 largest of these last spun on the 27th and changed to pupa on 

 the 30th, a fine imago appearing on August 26th (Farn) : a larva 

 found near Saltash in a mangold-wurzel field, fed on broad-leaved 

 plantain, was fullfed on July 12th, and an imago emerged August 

 nth, 1870 (Hobbs) ; nine larvae taken on dock in a nursery at 

 Plymouth in 1870, all gave imagines the same season (Rickard 

 teste Purdue), another was found on July 29th, 1870, in a garden at 

 Plymouth (Bignell); five larvae were found at Sketty Park in August, 

 1892, feeding on vine, and pupated well, when the box containing 

 them was lost (Robertson); a fullfed larva was found on July 22nd 

 at Starcross, which pupated, and produced an imago on September 

 27th, 1902 (Jager). 



Larva*. — The young larvae are at first of a dirty-white colour, 

 without any spots, but with the head and horn black ; at the end of the 

 second week they begin to assume markings, and, when about ijins. 

 long, the head, back, horn, belly and legs are all intensely black, but 

 the segmental folds show paler so as to give the appearance of 

 alternate lighter and darker bands, the subdorsal line is red, as well 

 as the subspiracular ; the sides are dotted with yellow ; the subdorsal 



* No useful description of the very early larval stages appears to be available. 

 We know of none in the literature to which we have access. 



