HYLES EUPHORBIA. 225 



markedly aberrant, and more or less darkened to a degree that 

 none exhibited when captured ; it was especially to be noticed that 

 the great yellow blotch across the small subsegments was very small 

 or wanting, in some the small yellow spots were few, in others they 

 crossed the space the blotch usually occupies ; the white or yellow 

 spots on the wide anterior subsegment were creamy or even red, the 

 dorsal and lateral bands reddish, and, when the yellow spots of the 

 small subsegments were wanting, the central hair of these seemed also 

 to be absent or less regularly placed. In one specimen there was no 

 lateral band, no blotch, the dorsal line very narrow and red, the 

 white spots on the ist subsegment small and the dots of the other 

 subsegments very few ; in all the examples the black marks on the 

 head were very definite, although these are often wanting in typical larvae 

 in last stadium. Whether this variation was due to their being late 

 specimens, or to starvation in captivity, or, what is more probable, from 

 their not being exposed to the broiling sun which the larvae seem to enjoy, 

 is not very easily decided, but all became more or less dark as very 

 few were at the time of capture. Merrifield observes (Ent. Rec, xii., 

 p. 320) that the larvae from the Grisons vary greatly in colour and 

 to a less degree in markings, and tend to gather into three groups : 

 (1) The predominant colour reddish, very much the colour of red 

 vulcanised india-rubber, the most common form. (2) With yellowish- 

 green the prevalent colour. (3) The ground-colour mainly 

 blackish. The conspicuous feature, in which all three agree, is the 

 subdorsal row of large light-coloured spots, varying from white 

 to yellow, usually cream-coloured ; all the other markings, except, 

 perhaps, the reddish colour of the dorsal line and head, &c, in most 

 of them, go for nothing at a casual glance. Chaumette gives (Z00L, ix., 

 p. 3159) the following description of the various forms of the larva found 

 at Lausanne : (1) No triangular patches of yellow or brown along the 

 sides ; the abdomen black, or black with an interrupted ventral line 

 of carrot-colour. (2) The two lateral series of oval shining yellow 

 patches joined, forming a series of large oblong patches ; this is 

 spotted with much larger spots than the common form, whilst in the 

 place of the lateral series of buff triangular patches there is a broad 

 and continuous ferruginous longitudinal line, which is sometimes 

 marked at the incisions by a small patch of red. (3) No triangular 

 patches of yellow or brown, &c. ; not so thickly spotted with 

 yellow along the sides as the others ; dorsal line very slender, and, 

 in some individuals, entirely missing, its position being left in black; 

 the oval lateral yellow patches often tinged with pink, especially 

 the lower ones, which are sometimes quite pink ; the head generally 

 retaining the two black patches which the others only have when young ; 

 the abdomen and prolegs generally quite black, and the thoracic 

 legs generally tipped with black, and often entirely of that colour. 

 Buckler thus writes (Larvae, &c, ii., pp. 33-35) of four larvae, which he 

 also figured (loc. cit., pi. xxiii), all in the last instar, although varying 

 in size : " The ground-colour of the smallest was black ; the next 

 in size was blackish-green, with a multitude of small bright yellow 

 dots, contrasted with larger spots of yellow tinged with a rosy hue in 

 the centre," whilst, for the rest, Buckler describes one fullgrown larva, 

 and then mentions the variations of detail in the others, as each preserved 

 its individual points of difference to the last. "The fullgrown larva 



