EPHKSTJA AltTKMISIKLLA. 219 



at each end. Soon after its formation it is of a pale 

 mahogany-brown colour, highly polished and semi- 

 transparent, so that the unchanged whitish grub 

 within can be partially seen through ; but after a few 

 days its occupant becomes invisible, as the case either 

 loses its transparency, or the colour of the pupa tben 

 assimilates with the case, which retains its colour to 

 the last; the perfect ichneumon makes a circular hole 

 in the side of the case, near the top, for its exit. 

 (William Buckler, September, 1872; E.M.M., Novem- 

 ber, 1872, IX, 143.) 



HoMCEOSOMA NEBULELLA. 



Plate CLVII, fig. 2. 



On the 18fch of August, 1882, I received a supply 

 of withered flower-heads of thistle (Carduus), contain- 

 ing larvae of Homoeosoma nebulella, from the Rev. H. 

 Williams, of Croxton, near Thetford. 



Length five-eighths of an inch and stout, cylin- 

 drical, tapering a little at both extremities. Head 

 small, narrower than the second, and still narrower 

 than the third segment; segmental divisions deeply 

 cut, and there is also a transverse depression, but not 

 so deep, on each segment. 



Ground colour dingy greenish-yellow ; head brown, 

 with darker sienna-brown mandibles, and a few 

 freckles of the same colour above the mandibles ; 

 frontal plate sea-green, edged behind with smoke- 

 colour. Dorsal stripe broad, dingy purple ; sub- 

 dorsal stripes of the same colour, but still broader; 

 and there is an equally broad stripe of the same 

 colour along the spiracular region, but this stripe is 

 interrupted at the segmental divisions, and has also 

 running through it a waved line of the ground colour. 

 The purple stripes form the prevailing colour of the 

 dorsal area, and might almost be taken as the ground 

 colour; the spiracles are black; the ventral surface is 



