THYMELICUS ACTEON. 123 



middle of the head and run to the end of the flat anal shield, which is 

 narrowly edged with pale-yellow. The transverse folds of the skin are yel- 

 lowish. The head is rounded with inflated cheeks, the brownish mouth 

 sunk deep between them. The colour of the head (brown in the young 

 larva) is pale, with the two yellowish lines very distinct and exteriorly 

 edged with greenish (brown also in the young larva), with lines stouter 

 and paler and without darker edges. The legs are very short and 

 greenish, the ventral ones having usually a longitudinal yellowish 

 stripe. The two snow-white patches on the underside of the 6th and 

 7th abdominal segments are conspicuous, as in lineola, sylvanus and 

 comma. This white substance is spread out at the anal end of the larva 

 of actaeon when it has formed its puparium (Zeller). The spiracles 

 are pale flesh -colour, situated on a faint and pale line, which touches 

 them in front, and vanishes behind each spiracle; the lower pale stripe 

 is inflated and rather overlaps the ventral prolegs ; the surface of the 

 head and body is slightly roughened with minute granulations, especially 

 on the thoracic and three terminal segments, which bear a number of 

 minute black points ; the rest of the upper surface is faintly freckled 

 with rather darker green than the pale ground ; the ocelli are black ; 

 the anal shield fringed with a few fine hairs. As the larva matures its 

 glaucous tint gives way to a paler and more yellowish green (Buckler). 

 [The larva is figured by Buckler, Larvae, &c, i., pi. xvii., figs. 2-2a.] 



Foodplants. — Brachypodium pinnatum (not B. sylvaticum in nature 

 in Britain) (Ent. Mo. Mag., xxii., pp. 138-9) (Buckler), B. sylvaticum 

 in confinement (Parmiter and Hutchinson), Triticum (Agropyron) 

 pun-gens, T. junceum in confinement (Buckler), Calamagrostis epigeios 

 (Zeller), Triticum repens, oat- and canary-grass in confinement (New- 

 man), Poa annua (Riihl). 



Pupakium. — The fullgrown larvae seek for a retired shelter, which 

 they find in a corner between some leaves on which they form a 

 spacious habitation by spinning in the open parts a thin wall of 

 whitish web, with large and very irregular meshes, the resting-place 

 being thickly covered with whitish silk, but most thickly where the 

 tail of the larva is to rest, pupation taking place in four or five days (Zel- 

 ler). They also construct close retreats within the outer space, formed 

 by two or three blades of grass crossing each other. These they fasten 

 together with silk, and within it- spin a silken carpet, to which they 

 attach themselves, making also a fine cincture of white silk that is 

 drawn tightly round the front of the pupa after pupation has taken 

 place, the cincture being secured a little behind to each side of the 

 chamber by a thickening of the silk. The few stout threads that cross 

 over the pupa at each end, more or less obliquely, do not touch it at 

 all, but serve as security for its habitation, and possibly as protective 

 outworks whilst it lies fastened on its silken carpet (Buckler). The 

 pupa is enclosed between two or more grass blades, drawn closely 

 together and lined with silk so as to form a cocoon ; still the blades 

 over the back are but slightly drawn together, and are easily removed, 

 leaving the pupa in the hollow of a leaf, attached much like a 

 Papilionid or a Pierid. Under the pupa, the silken mat is strong and 

 continuous, and extends 3mm. or 4mm. beyond the pupa at either end ; 

 there is rather more silk under the cremaster, forming a pad, not nearly 

 so definite as in that of a Papilio, etc., but still entitled to be recognised 

 as a specially thickened position in the silken mat. The pupa is also 



