120 MACROGLOSSA STELLATARUM. 



constant. He notices the habit of the moth in autumn 

 to fly about the face of cliffs and walls, and twice he 

 has seen the moth creep into holes. Then as to the 

 south of Europe, on February 16th, 1866, Mr. Mathew 

 saw a pair in cop. at Gibraltar flying across one of 

 the paths on the Rock, while many others were 

 hovering about. Mr. Stainton says that at Rome 

 in February and March he has seen three or four 

 moths buzzing in nearly every window of the Villa 

 Borghese, which stands outside the walls, and both in 

 the Campagna at Rome and in the Riviera, moths 

 were constantly seen in flight through the early 

 spring. 



Mr. W. H. Harwood tells me he has watched the 

 female moth laying her eggs on the flowers and 

 flower-buds of Galium mollugo in his garden, and that 

 she does not alight but keeps on the wing all the time, 

 curling up her abdomen so as to place the egg on the 

 underside of the flower or bud. 



I am not able to describe the egg or young larva ; 

 the full-grown larva is about 45 mm. long, stout, but 

 tapering considerably from segment 5 to the head, 

 which is small and rounded; on segment 12 is a short, 

 stiff, rough horn with sharp point ; the skin with eight 

 subdividing folds to each segment set with rough 

 points ; the colour either a dull grey-green or dull 

 brown, with a darker shade of the ground colour along 

 the middle of the back; a well-defined whitish sub- 

 dorsal line edged above with a dark tint of the ground ; 

 a subspiracular yellowish line, the spiracles black, the 

 points on the skin white, the horn bluish at the base, 

 yellow at the tip. The larva makes for pupation an 

 open cocoon on the surface of the ground, sheltered by 

 a plant or stone. The pupa is about 35 mm. long, 

 stoutest in the middle, tapering to the head, which is 

 prolonged into a flattish projecting tongue-case ; the 

 abdomen tapers gradually to near the end, when it 

 slopes off rapidly ; it has a short sharp spike with two 

 tiny straight spines at the tip ; the pupa skin is thin. 



