66 NASCIA CILTALIS. 



One larva, supposed to be Nascia cilialis, was found 

 and forwarded to me by the Hon. Thomas de Grey, 

 M.P. [now Lord Walsingham], on the 23rd of 

 September, 1869, and figured on the 27th, 



It fed on a species of Gar ex with its head down- 

 wards. 



This larva measured from seven-eighths to an inch 

 in length, and was slender, tapering a little in front 

 and still more behind. It was striped longitudinally 

 on the head and body. The dorsal line was red, 

 which commencing on the head outlined the front of 

 each lobe, and then passed over the crown and down 

 the middle of the back as an orange-red thin stripe of 

 uniform width, having a stripe of yellow ground colour 

 on either side. This is followed along the subdor- 

 sal region by a deep crimson or purple-red stripe, 

 attenuated on the head and the anal segment, and 

 increasing in width on the other segments towards 

 the seventh, eighth, and ninth, where it is broadest. 

 Immediately beneath is a stripe of sulphur-yellow of 

 uniform width throughout, and this is followed by the 

 deeper full bright yellow of the sides and legs ; the 

 belly is a very pale yellowish-green. The spiracles 

 are pale reddish, scarcely to be detected as they are 

 situated in a deep lateral wrinkle ; the tubercles on the 

 back are slightly raised, each bearing a fine hair. 



While feeding, and for a little time after, the head 

 and front segments have the stripes of purple intensi- 

 fied and the red dorsal stripe tinged with green, and 

 the yellow of the back is palest on the thoracic 

 segments. 



By the 1st of October it had increased in length 

 three-sixteenths of an inch, and measured full one and 

 one-sixteenth inches, and this in little more than a 

 week, in the course of which the ravages made on the 

 leaves of the Gar ex were remarkable ; always feeding 

 with its head downwards, in this inverted position it 

 invariably commenced by eating out a notch from the 

 blade, of an obtuse angle, and from thence continued 



