46 DASYDIA OBFUSCATA. 
laid in little groups of two or three or even more to- 
gether, and to be set up on end, on the sprays of heather. 
On hatching, the young larva makes its escape from 
the top of the egg-shell, and even at this early age 
has, for a geometer, a stout figure; its colour ig pale 
leaden-grey, with a paler subdorsal line, which is 
bordered below with a darker grey stripe; the head 
blackish. 
Just before hybernation, when of the length of 
rather more than a quarter-inch, the larva is very 
rugose; its colour is now a dingy blackish-brown on 
the back and sides, with a broad subspiracular stripe 
of reddish or violet-grey, intersected by a blackish 
line; the head blackish, with a grey spot on the crown 
of each lobe; an indistinct, dark, dorsal stripe, edged 
with fine grey lines; the tubercular raised warts grey, 
the dorsal pair on the twelfth segment being more 
prominently raised than any of the others. 
As the larva grows it becomes lighter in colour, and 
when full-fed may be described as follows: 
Length not quite an inch, figure very stout and 
stiff, cylindrical in the middle, shehtly flattened at the 
extremities; the spiracular region forming a puckered 
ledge; head smaller than the second segment, and 
tucked in; legs short. 
The ground colour grey, in some specimens be- 
coming gradually paler behind; on the front seements 
a fine double dorsal line, enclosing a whitish-grey ~ 
thread, but afterwards this double line appears only as 
a small elongated spear-head in the middle of each 
segment; the subdorsal line is a fine waved pale 
thread, edged with black, and bearing thick dark 
dashes at the beginning and end of the segments ;. the 
tubercular warts are whitish with dark rings, the 
dorsal pair on the twelfth are placed close together, 
and, being more developed than the rest, stand up as 
obtuse points; the row of warts on the thirteenth 
segment above the anal flap are very small, and black 
in colour; the spiracles are pale brown ringed with 
