DEILBPSILA EUPHORBIA. 31 



During their journey to me they had stripped to the 

 bare stems the food placed along with them, and 

 appeared restless and hungry; my first precaution 

 was to separate them and to supply them with some 

 Euphorbia peplus gathered from the garden, and on 

 this substituted food three of them began to satisfy 

 their cravings. The largest, however, refused to touch 

 it, and as it appeared to be full fed, I set to work at 

 once to secure its portrait ; an operation which, from 

 the complicated nature of its details, and the irritability 

 and restlessness of the subject, was not completed till 

 the afternoon of the next day, when I placed the larva 

 in a pot with sand and food, and in a few hours it spun 

 itself up on the sand under some spurge and moss. 



Meanwhile, a friend had kindly undertaken for me 

 an expedition to the coast and had brought back a 

 good supply of plants as well as gathered branches of 

 Euphorbia par alias and portlandica; the plants I potted, 

 and the branches I gave to the feeding larvge, and it 

 was a pleasure to witness their enjoyment of this more 

 congenial fare. 



The Euphorbia peplus they had been eating had 

 evidently been regarded as a mere whet — and their 

 appetite now seemed insatiable; each larva embraced 

 the sea-spurge with all its legs, and ate voraciously, 

 and at length when compelled to stop, it would go to 

 sleep without change of position, and with a partly- 

 devoured leaf in its jaws ; and then, after a few minutes' 

 repose, it would wake up, finish the leaf, and attack 

 whatever came next — leaves or seed-vessels — most 

 vigorously; there was no walking about, the only 

 movement was a step or two backward as the stem 

 shortened beneath its jaws. 



From this time their behaviour was most satisfactory. 

 Fortunately they were all of different ages, though all 

 in their last moult, and I was able, without anxiety 

 for the others, to devote my whole energies to one at 

 a time ; and so in turn they all sat to me — or rather 

 I may say ate before me — during eight days while I 



