ENDROMJS VERSICOLOR. 65 



a slight backward curve, and the anal flap is margined 

 with yellowish ; the anterior legs are pale green, some- 

 times tipped with red, and with a black hook. 



When full-fed, all the green colours of the larva 

 change to brown, and it becomes restless until it finds 

 the moss and leaves needful for its retirement and the 

 construction of its cocoon. The cocoon varies in 

 length from 1 inch 4 lines to 1 inch 7 lines, and is of 

 long elliptical shape, being from 6 to 8 inches in width ; 

 it is composed of an open-worked reticulation of coarse 

 black or black-brown silk threads, with round or broad 

 oval interstices ; the fabric is extremely strong, tough, 

 and elastic, covered externally with moss and birch 

 leaves firmly adherent. 



About a week or ten days before the time of 

 emergence, the cocoon is pushed by the enclosed pupa 

 from a prone to a vertical position, the upper end is 

 ruptured, and the pupa protrudes its head through the 

 opening, and continues by degrees to advance, until it 

 is exposed as far as the end of the wing-covers ; fixed 

 in this position, it remains quiet a longer or shorter 

 time till the insect is able to escape, though in two or 

 three instances the pupa had worked itself out entirely 

 free from the cocoon before the moth could be dis- 

 closed ; on examination, the pupa could be seen to be 

 well furnished with means for facilitating such move- 

 ments as described below. 



The pupa itself measures in the male a length of 12 

 to 14 or 15 lines, in the female from 17 to 18 lines, or 

 occasionally a little more ; it is very stout, the diameter 

 across the bulkiest part, at the end of the wing-covers 

 in the male, ranges from 4 to 4^ lines, in the female 6 

 lines. The head has the mouth-parts a little produced 

 in a squarish form, flanked by the curved antenna- 

 cases in high relief ; thence the head is bluntly rounded 

 above in an unbroken swelling curved outline to the 

 end of the wing-covers, including the thorax and upper 

 abdominal rings ; the movable abdominal ring is very 

 deeply cut, and below those are well defined, the last 



vol. in. 5 



