160 SPILODES PALEALIS. 



ground-coloured middle and black centre, from which 

 proceeds a blackish hair, and each spot is surrounded 

 with a paler ring ; the dorsal stripe is a darker tint of 

 the slaty green ; besides the usual trapezoidal series 

 along the back there is a single line of spots along 

 the side, succeeded immediately by a whitish-yellow 

 spiracular stripe, on which each black spiracle is 

 situated ; beneath this and on the belly the colouring 

 is as pale, but scarcely so primrose a yellow, and more 

 inclining to pale flesh-colour; the three rows of spots 

 along the lower parts are smaller, paler, and more 

 faintly marked ; a broad whitish faint central stripe is 

 on the belly ; the anterior legs are black and shining, 

 with paler joints. 



As the larva becomes full-fed its colours begin to 

 fade and turn drab and then reddish ; one individual 

 arrived quite crimson, having after feeding grown of 

 this dark hue, and as soon as supplied with earth 

 it burrowed out of sisfht within a minute. The whole 

 number (six) had by the 24th of September retired 

 under the earth. A year after, on the 26th of 

 September, 1876, finding that no moth had appeared 

 from the larva3 above described, I turned out the con- 

 tents of their pot of earth, in which were six earthen- 

 covered silken and very strong and tough cocoons, 

 miniature editions of those of Gucullia verbasci; I cut 

 one of them open, and found the larva within still 

 alive, after a whole year's lapse. Thus in this habit 

 of standing over for a time, as well as in the construc- 

 tion and shape of their cocoons, do they resemble G. 

 verbasci. 



On the 1st of September, 1876, I received two of 

 these larvae in an umbel of unripe carrot seeds, and 

 they fed well until the 12th, when they burrowed into 

 the earth. On the 19th Miss Terry found and 

 brought me from the front orchard at Lumley a very 

 small larva in a carrot umbel. In the course of four 

 days it moulted and proved to be this species, and on 

 the 23rd I searched myself the umbels of wild carrot 



