NOOTQA DITRAPEZILTM. 33 



minute dusky dots can be discerned on all the other 

 segments of the body. After the first moult they 

 were darkish-green or slaty-green, and rather velvety, 

 with dark shining blackish heads. By the 9th of 

 August, after another moult, they were darker on the 

 sides than on the back, and of a dingy-greenish colour, 

 with faint dotted or broken dirty-whitish dorsal and 

 subdorsal lines ; feeding well on clock and sallow. 

 By the 23rd, after another moult, they had become 

 brown with darker brown side bands and dorsal some- 

 what diamond-shaped marks down the back, one on 

 each segment; the dorsal and subdorsal dotted lines 

 of creamy- whitish still more conspicuous (I sent 

 eighteen to Mr Jeffrey, and twelve to Mrs. Hutchinson). 

 From this time I continued to supply them with similar 

 food until the sallow began to fail, and then I resorted 

 to bramble leaves, which from former experience I 

 knew to be their natural food, during the winter and 

 early spring months, supplementing them with a few 

 dock leaves when they could be found. The winter 

 proving unusually and severely cold, they slept con- 

 tentedly through all the long-sustained cold periods, 

 and whenever a milder interval came I provided more 

 bramble, which they ate, and throve gradually, not a 

 single death happening all through the winter. In 

 March they began to be more awake, and one or two 

 at a time began to moult, and fresh dock leaves were 

 often added to their fare of bramble ; and through 

 April they began to feed, grow, and moult, and by the 

 beginning of May, 1879, a few had acquired their full 

 growth. Occasionally, a little fresh hawthorn and 

 young sallow leaves were added to their fare, and 

 towards the end of the month they became full-fed, 

 burrowing in the earth a few at a time from the 10th 

 to the 29th of May. Just before this time three or 

 four deaths occurred amongst them of individuals that 

 had lost appetite, lagged behind the rest, and had not 

 performed the last, nor, perhaps, the penultimate 

 moult, though they lingered on alive, apparently 

 vol. v. 3 



