PTEROPHORUS PUNCTIDAOL'YLUS. 353 



spring or early summer. The two moths I placed in 

 a pot of growing Stachys, and various dry leaves, etc., 

 and covered over with gauze. The moths lived well 

 into the winter, but on examining the pot, I think in 

 January or February (I have no note of the exact 

 date), I found that they had died. 



I was therefore very pleased to receive in the middle 

 of August last, 1885, another consignment of eight 

 larvae from Mr. Bankes, from which I made fresh 

 descriptions. From them I bred six P. cosmodactylus, 

 but no P. acanthodactj/lus. The moths were bred 

 from the larvae described, and on comparing my notes 

 with those taken the previous year, they corresponded 

 so closely that I suppose all were taken from P. cos- 

 modactylus larvae ; the alternative being that we have 

 but one species under the two names ; or the dif- 

 ferences in the larvae must be so slight as to be almost 

 imperceptible. As the P. acanthodactylus I bred 

 were the first specimens to appear, it is possible that 

 the species may have been in advance of P. cosmodac- 

 tylus, and that the larvae were in fact nearly over when 

 Mr. Bankes collected them ; but this year, although 

 he searched early, he failed to find a P. acanthodactylus 

 larva at all. It is now most necessary to have careful 

 descriptions of larvae which produce P. acanthodactylus, 

 or still better, to rear larvae from P. acanthodactylus 

 eggs, and see if both forms of imago would be 

 produced from them. 



The larva is about half an inch in length, and of the 

 usual stumpy form when at rest. The head is small, 

 and narrower than the second segment ; it has the 

 lobes rounded, and is highly polished; the body is 

 cylindrical, attenuated a little posteriorly, each seg- 

 ment plump and distinct, making the divisions clearly 

 defined ; the skin is soft, and sparingly clothed with 

 short hairs. 



There are two very distinct varieties. 



In Var. 1 (which, judging from the larvae sent me, 

 is the rather commoner form) the ground colour is a 



vol. ix. 23 



