120 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



largely triangular, in one or two places three or four squares are seen in 

 a row, but for the most part no regularity is observable. Their average 

 diameter is O034mm. The lines forming the mesh are raised and 

 rounded and about 0*004mm. in width; at many points of intersection 

 is a slight elevation as of a knob, a hint of the raised knobs of Lycaenid 

 eggs. The micropylar area is a very definite and neat little rosette 

 about O005mm. in diameter. It is situated at the centre of the 

 upper surface of the egg, showing it to be an upright egg, though of 

 so unusual a shape (Chapman. Described from the same egg, Septem- 

 ber 13th, 1905). 



Habits of larva. — As we have just noted, this species probably 

 hybernates in the egg stage, the larva hatching in the very early spring, 

 although Eiihl says it hatches in the autumn and lives in rolled-together 

 leaves. By early May in forward seasons the larvae may be already 

 found in rolled leaves of Brachypodium pinnatum in its Dorset haunts ; 

 they are then variable in size, and may be collected freely until well 

 into June, in Purbeck. The larva, at any rate from an early stage of 

 its existence, lives by day concealed in a cylindrical tube, open at 

 both ends, which it forms by drawing together the edges of a young 

 blade of Brachypodium pinnatum along the more central portion of its 

 length, and securely fastening them to one another with white silk, of 

 which the separate transverse stout cords are most noticeable. In this 

 it rests, head upwards, stretched out in a straight line along the 

 middle of the blade, and, when feeding, which it doubtless does only 

 by night, it devours portions of this blade above its tube, beginning at 

 the margins. As it increases in size, it moves to another blade, on 

 which it constructs a fresh tube, and, when fullgrown, it often forms 

 its tube by fastening together the ends of two neighbouring blades of 

 its foodplant along part of their length, thereby securing a more roomy 

 habitation and a larger supply of accessible food. I have never found a 

 pupa in any of the numerous large tubes met with while searching for the 

 larva, or elsewhere (Bankes). In 1879-80-81 I had larvae sent me by a 

 kind friend at the end of May ; they then varied in size from one-fifth 

 to half-an-inch. Without exception they all arrived, and continued to 

 live throughout, in a tube formed by a grass leaf, drawn together by 

 white silk, only coming out to feed. They dwelt in their tube during 

 the day, and fed at night on the tender parts of young grass. . . . 

 They went into pupa in the tube, or made a cocoon by spinning two or three 

 blades of grass together (Hutchinson). They spin together the grass 

 blades and live therein (Parmiter) ; at rest, they lie very fiat on a blade 

 of grass, with the head stretched out in the same plane as the body ; 

 when disturbed the larva falls, the two extremities approach each 

 other and the body assumes a crescentic form ; the larva can suspend 

 itself by a thread, still maintaining its crescentic form, but as soon as 

 it feels something on which to rest it breaks the connection, resting either 

 in a straight position or fixing itself by its prolegs, holding out its head 

 and anterior segments in a leech-like manner; it appears to feed 

 entirely at night, and then makes large gaps in the grass-blade 

 beginning at the margin and eating its way towards the middle 

 (Newman). The fullgrown larva spin a coating of white silk from 

 one side to the other in the middle of a grass-blade, causing the two 

 edges of the blade to draw together a little, and resting in the silk- 

 lined hollow, whence they ascend high up the blades of the grass, 



