16 AORONYCTA ALNI. 



segments, and very much tinged with cool violet grey 

 on the middle segments of the body, and this grey 

 colour ascended obliquely to the back on the twelfth 

 segment, where it was dorsally divided by a stripe of 

 white. On the back and sides of the pale cream- 

 coloured eleventh segment the tubercles were absent, 

 though their situation was most faintly indicated by 

 the merest rudiments of warts and hairs of the white 

 colour, only to be detected with a lens ; the spiracles 

 were black and oval, with a halo of white. In short, 

 there was a white dorsal line, much interrupted, show- 

 ing chiefly near the segmental divisions ; on all the dark 

 segments also a white subdorsal, a prespiracular line, 

 and a subspiracular stripe ; the belly olive-brown, 

 darkest on the anterior, and whitish on the posterior 

 segments, thus corresponding with the colouring of the 

 back. Anterior legs black ; the ventral and anal pro- 

 legs black on their outer sides. 



The most forward laid up on a spinning of silk on a 

 leaf in the afternoon of the 22nd, and by 5 o'clock on 

 the 24th it had moulted ; after being quiescent for fifty 

 hours until an hour or so before the moult occurred, 

 when it at intervals turned the head and front half of 

 the body from one side to the other. It had now 

 assumed the normal colouring of the full-grown larva 

 and was black, with the large yellow patch on each 

 segment, with flattened, spear-pointed, black, glossy 

 hairs. 



On the 8th July, 1881, 1 had one egg of this species 

 given me by Mr. Bignell. It hatched on the 10th ; the 

 first moult occurred on the 14th, the second on the 

 18th, the third on the 27th July, and the fourth and 

 last moult on the 4th August. This larva, when 

 hatched, was placed on an oak leaf, from which it ate 

 the cuticle of the underside, and after moulting the 

 second time began to eat holes quite through the leaf, 

 and soon afterwards large portions from the edges of 

 the leaf, leaving only the mid-rib. It was tried more 

 than once with alder, which it refused to eat, though 



