10 ANTHROCERA MINOS. 



and were no bigger than a leaf of the wild thyme, and, 

 indeed, of pretty much the same figure in outline, 

 when they settled down for hybernation about the 

 beginning of September. They assembled in two 

 little groups of four or five each, and spinning some 

 silk on the underside of the stoutest stems of their 

 food-plant, rested quietly till near the end of February. 



Mr. Birchall had warned me that in their native 

 locality (the West of Ireland) they had probably little 

 experience of frost, so I placed the flower-pot with 

 large glass cylinder, which enclosed the plant of thyme, 

 in a garden frame under a high wall with a south 

 aspect ; there was no hot-bed in the frame, but as it 

 received all the rays of the sun from about 9 a.m. to 

 4 p.m., a considerable amount of warmth was kept up 

 in it compared to the temperature outside. In fact, 

 the thyme continued to grow and thicken all through 

 the winter, until my little larvge were quite hidden, 

 and it would at any time have taken a sharp eye to 

 distinguish them, whilst hybernating, from a withered 

 thyme-leaf, so much were they of the same colour, and 

 furnished with little hairs of the same length. 



About February the 20th, 1868, I noticed four or 

 five of them moving in the sunshine, and some of 

 the tender shoots of the thyme showed marks of 

 their jaws being at work ; and at this date I noted 

 down the following description : — 



Length one-sixth of an inch ; colour of a pinkish- 

 brown all over ; some faint traces of subdorsal rows 

 of black and yellow spots ; hairs arranged in little 

 tufts. 



On the 7th of March the larvae sickened for moulting, 

 and about the 14th they all appeared in a new dress. 

 The colour immediately after the moult was a dull 

 blackish rifle-green, the upper spots showing like 

 black velvet, and the lower row being now distinct and 

 of a primrose-yellow ; some of the hairs were black 

 and some whitish. As they fed and grew their colour 

 became lighter, and about this time four of the nine 



