96 APAMEA FIBROSA. 



leaves are grown so compactly together as to form 

 almost a solid substance, and there, a little above the 

 root-stock on the outside, is a roundish hole, pierced 

 horizontally or tortuously to the very heart or centre 

 of the plant, whence this excavation is enlarged and 

 extended either upwards or downwards, or a little in 

 both directions, just as the larva chooses to feed ; and 

 the hollow residence thus eaten out is thereby more or 

 less irregular in form and direction, though generally 

 an inch and a half in perpendicular length, and from 

 a quarter to three-eighths in width, as from a sample 

 comprising a good number of these excavations, most 

 kindly sent by Mr. Fletcher for my inspection, I found 

 all varying a little from each other, though in one 

 important particular they were alike, — in the fact of 

 their being just sufficiently low down to escape the 

 scythe of the mower. 



On the 14th of August I bred the moth, a female. 

 The length of the larva I figured was from thirteen to 

 fourteen lines ; it was of moderate thickness and very 

 cylindrical throughout, except that the head was a trifle 

 smaller than the second segment, and the third and 

 fourth rather the stoutest, the thirteenth with a very re- 

 markable sloping plate on the anal Rap, flattened in the 

 middle and having a prominent ridge round the margin, 

 with large tubercular warts at the hinder edge ; the 

 segmental divisions plainly defined, and also the sub- 

 dividing wrinkles across the back of each beyond the 

 fourth, viz. one not far from the beginning, another 

 well behind the first pair of tubercular warts, and a 

 third a little behind the second pair of the trapezoid. 

 All the legs were very well developed. In colour the 

 head was of a dark warm brown, darkest at the mouth 

 and very glossy, a black glossy plate on the second seg- 

 ment, the anal plate blackish-brown with black mar- 

 ginal ridge and posterior warts ; the rest of the body 

 above was of a very dark slaty-brown, rather inclining 

 to a very deep olivaceous drab, especially on the 

 thoracic segments ; the belly and legs a lighter drab, 



