VANESSA ATALANTA. 177 



time. In 1883 I found some larvae in their caves 

 formed by drawing together the leaves of Urtica dioica, 

 but I have not the exact date of this, or of similar 

 finds in other years. On July 25th, 1885, Mr. W. H. 

 B. Fletcher kindly sent a number of the larvae of 

 various sizes, feeding on nettle (Mr. Fletcher informs 

 me he has before now found the larva on Parietaria 

 officinalis) ; a large proportion of them developed 

 ichneumons when rather more than half grown, but 

 several became pupae between July 28th and August 

 10th ; the first butterfly emerged August 8th, and the 

 rest during the month. The smaller larvae were mostly 

 black, but so many were killed by ichneumons that 

 I got bub few notes of them. The full-grown larva is 

 over 30 mm. long, stout, the head horny, with a flat 

 face, much larger than the second segment, which is 

 both short and narrow ; the body is set with seven 

 rows of branched spines (longer than those of C. cardui, 

 but not so long as those of V. Io), arranged as follows: 

 eight dorsal on segments 5 to 12, ten subdorsal on 

 segments 3 to 12, twelve lateral on segments 3 to 13 

 (there are two pairs of lateral spines on 13), and eight 

 subspiracular on segments 5 to 12 ; the head set with 

 glistening warts ; and there are some on the second 

 segment, and a few hairs all over the body. The colour 

 seems very variable. I had some examples which I 

 called black — the ground colour being blackish, freckled 

 and dotted with white, with two pale yellow lateral 

 stripes, the upper one being much narrower than the 

 lower; the spines on segment 3 black, on segment 

 4 yellow with black tips, all the other spines pale 

 yellow; the thoracic legs black, ventral prolegs reddish- 

 brown, anal prolegs black with yellow feet; the spiracles 

 indistinct, being black ringed faintly with yellow on 

 black ground, below them a stout waved yellow line ; 

 the belly black speckled with whitish. Another variety 

 was soft grey in general colour, with the spines buff; 

 another, grey freckled with yellowish-green, with darker 

 marks along the subdorsal region, and a yellow sub- 

 vol. i. 12 



