HEPIALUS VELLEDA. 55 



ground amongst the stems of fern (Pteris aquilina) 

 during the month of June. The egg is globular and 

 of a pale drab colour, which in a few hours changes to 

 a deep blue-black. 



The young larva is hatched in three weeks ; it is then 

 of a drab colour, with pale reddish-brown horny head, 

 plates and spots, and distinctly visible hairs. It imme- 

 diately begins burrowing into the earth by the side of 

 the fern stems, nibbling them in its progress down- 

 wards to the root or rhizome of the fern, from which 

 its future sustenance is to be derived during two 

 seasons. 



By the end of the first twelve months of its exis- 

 tence the larva has attained the average length of 

 three-quarters of an inch, and is very slender and 

 active, of an opaque yellowish- or greyish- white, with 

 three transverse, blackish, translucent streaks on the 

 back of each segment, and the blackish dorsal vessel 

 visible through the skin. 



It continues to feed till quite late in the autumn of its 

 second year, when it becomes full-fed, having, meanwhile, 

 committed very extensive ravages on the fern. The rhi- 

 zome, tough as it is, though juicy at the same time, is 

 excavated and channelled out for about the length of 

 ten inches, in some places nothing being left but the 

 outer rind — in others the gallery of the larva being 

 scooped out tortuously along the outside. 



During its second winter the larva remains torpid at 

 some depth, but, on the advent of spring, approaches 

 near the surface of the earth. It is now full grown, 

 and, according to the sex, measures from one and a 

 quarter to one and a half inches in length, rather thick 

 in proportion, the folds and segmental divisions being 

 very deeply cut, and the jaws remarkably large and 

 prominent. 



In colour the head of the male is reddish-brown, with 

 a distinctly defined plate of the same colour on the 

 second segment, while in the female the head is of a 

 deeper and purplish-red, the mouth (in both sexes) 



