DASYOAMPA RUBIGINEA. 71 



than one and a half when in motion, its powers of 

 self-extension or contraction being much greater than 

 those of any other Noctua larva with which I am 

 acquainted ; the figure stoutest at the twelfth seg- 

 ment, and thence tapering regularly to the head, which 

 is the smallest segment, and the thirteenth tapering 

 rapidly behind, the anal pair of legs being remarkably 

 close together; the skin is soft, and each segment swells 

 out plump in the middle ; all the tubercles and the 

 plate on the thirteenth segment have disappeared, 

 and amongst the long fine silky hairs there is now a 

 growth of shorter ones. The colour is now purplish- 

 brown, glistening in certain positions with a faint 

 violet, mealy gloss ; the pulsating dorsal vessel shows 

 as an indistinct paler line ; the dark patches down the 

 back have become in some instances a thick, clumsy 

 X on each segment, in others a pair of curved blotches, 

 and there are also pairs of smaller and fainter dots on 

 segments two, three, and four, those on four being the 

 largest, and of a square form ; the head is intensely 

 black ; the region of the back is curiously freckled with 

 very fine blackish-brown curved marks, which, how- 

 ever, do not touch the X marks, but allow them, as it 

 were, to stand out more distinctly ; and in the same 

 way the subdorsal and spiracular lines are to be dis- 

 tinguished by the absence of these freckles from the 

 ground colour, rather than by any decided line of 

 another tint ; the spiracles small, black, and shining ; 

 the belly paler than the back, and somewhat tinged 

 with green ; the hairs are all of a beautiful golden 

 brown. The habit of the larva seemed to be to hide 

 itself by day, in spite of its silky, Bombyx-like clothing, 

 and to feed and move at night ; and I fancy its food, 

 when at large, must consist of low plants, rather 

 than trees or shrubs, otherwise we should hear of its 

 capture. 



The Zoological Record (vol. II, 1865) does indeed 

 contain notices, extracted from Berl. Ent. Zeits., 

 1865, p. 112, and Stett. Ent. Zeits., 1865, p. 113, of 



