32 AGLOSSA P1NGUINALIS. 



When six weeks old they become of a dingy grey- 

 brown colour, almost approaching to blackness. On 

 the 25th of September I chanced to notice one larva, 

 which appeared nearly ready to moult ; it was then 

 dark grey-brown at each end, and whitish -grey along 

 the middle segments of the body, where the dark 

 dorsal vessel showed through, but interrupted at the 

 segmental folds of pale skin ; this larva I kept apart, 

 and in a few days it moulted, and became as dark as 

 any of the others. 



On the 27th of September the smallest was from 9 

 to 10 mm., and the largest 13 mm. long; the head was 

 jet-black, the plate nearly as black, and also three or 

 four following segments, this hue from thence melting 

 gradually into slaty-grey, whereon the minute tuber- 

 cular black dots appeared ; the anal plate was brownish- 

 black, and dull. The individual kept apart from the 

 others had increased to a length of 17 mm. by the 11th 

 of October, when it was of a slaty blackness. By the 

 13th of November most of the others had grown to be 

 20 mm. long, inhabiting, as I said before, long soft 

 tubes of dark grey-brown silk, smooth inside, but 

 covered externally with quantities of the sweepings; the 

 larvae I turned out to inspect were now entirely black, 

 excepting the pale upper lip, papillae, and the legs, 

 which were all semi- pellucid and light drab coloured ; 

 a great number of pellets of black frass appeared in 

 the pots ; these I was careful to remove on all occasions 

 of replenishing the supply of sweepings. 



I did not disturb them again until the 4th of March, 

 1883, after keeping them through the winter in a cool 

 dark place, and then I found they had not grown at 

 all in the interval, but during the next twenty days 

 their tubes increased to a length of two and a half 

 inches, and the agglomerations adhering made up 

 roughly a transverse diameter of about three-quarters 

 of an inch. 



As stated above, all this investigation of the growing 

 larvae was made at the cost of the lives of most of 



