70 DASYCAMPA RUBIG1NEA. 



are connected by very slight transverse reticulations. 

 The colour at first is whitish, faintly tinged with yellow, 

 but it soon becomes blotched with brownish-buff, in 

 some specimens irregularly, in others more regularly 

 with a central spot at the top, and a broad belt round 

 the middle, and to the naked eye the egg now appears 

 something the colour of a grain of wheat ; after a 

 time the blotches turn to puce, and finally the whole 

 egg becomes pale purplish. 



The larva at first is of a semi-translucent purplish 

 tint, with brown shining head, and the usual dots 

 black and distinct, each emitting a long wavy whitish 

 hair. The first food eaten is the empty egg-shell, but 

 after the larva has begun to eat leaves its colour 

 soon becomes greenish. After a few days the colour 

 changes to brown, and the hairs show golden in the 

 sunshine ; and after another moult the brown becomes 

 darker, and the transverse rows of tubercular dots 

 show to the naked eye like dark bands. When 

 about three-quarters of an inch in length it assumes 

 a waxy shining appearance, reminding one of an 

 Agrotis, with the head and collar shining black, but 

 after the next moult it comes out at first nearly black 

 all over ; this nigritude does not, however, last long ; 

 in a day or two the skin becomes paler, and from this 

 time till it attains the len gth of one and one-eighth inch es 

 the description is as follows : — The ground colour 

 ochreous-brown, with rather pale dorsal, subdorsal, 

 and spiracular lines ; the head dark brown ; a dark 

 brown dull plate on second segment, also on tip of the 

 anal segment ; the tubercular dots black and very 

 distinct, the first dorsal pair of them in each segment 

 after the fourth being placed in a blackish-brown 

 transversely oval patch, which interrupts the dorsal 

 line ; the body thinly covered with very fine silky, 

 brown hairs ; in some specimens the oval dorsal 

 patches are replaced by pairs of oblong dots, separated 

 by the dorsal line. The length of the full-grown 

 larva is one and a quarter inches when at rest, but more 



