104 HYDKOCAMPA STAGNATA. 



brown and died down naturally, collapsing and sink- 

 ing at last to the bottom of the water; but by the 

 middle of February, 1877, a few very thin and tender 

 narrow shoots began to appear again. After this a 

 thick growth of Conferva, which at first I did not like 

 to meddle with, greatly impeded my view, till on the 

 6th of April I cleared some of it away, and removed 

 some worms I found feeding on the debris of the old 

 plants, and a few other creatures which I regarded as 

 water vermin ; and then I could see clearly quite a 

 tangled growth of young and very tender leaves of the 

 Spar g anium low in the water. Some of them in a few 

 days reached the surface and lay floating there, and 

 the first evidence 1 had of the larvge beginning to feed 

 occurred on the 20th of April, when I detected a small 

 fragment of a leaf floating on the surface, and near it 

 a kind of green dust, which, by the help of a mag- 

 nifier, I made out to be frass. At length I detected 

 the whereabouts of the larva hidden between two 

 young leaves, which at the place seemed spun to- 

 gether just beneath the surface of the water; three 

 days later I saw other similar appearances, and for 

 the first time after hibernation saw a larva very dis- 

 tinctly in the act of feeding ; its position was nearly 

 vertical between two leaves, just at the point where, 

 after rising about an inch above the water, they bent 

 down again to float on it. Here it had spun the leaves 

 together with silken threads, but had left a little 

 opening through which I could watch it leisurely eat- 

 ing the edge of the lower leaf ; more than half its 

 body was above water, the remainder obscured by the 

 lacing to and fro of the silk threads. This larva 

 seemed to be half an inch long, or perhaps more, and 

 paler than when feeding in autumn, but otherwise 

 similar. Next clay it had cut the leaves asunder at 

 that part, and ensconced itself in a fresh residence 

 lower down the plant, under water, probably unable 

 to tie the walls of its previous abode completely 

 together, from the circumstance of another individual 



