74 



August, 



About February 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, 

 i inch ; colour, all over a pinkish-brovm ; some faint traces of sub-dorsal rows of 

 black and yellow spots ; hairs arranged in little tufts. March 7th : larva? sickened 

 for moulting ; about 14th all appeared in a new dress ; colour immediately after 

 moult 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 black, 

 some whitish. As they fed and grew, their colour became lighter, and about this 

 time four of the nine disappeared — I suppose having sickened and died ; but the 

 thyme was now so dense I could not find them. April 1st : the five survivors moulted 

 again — as before, coming out almost black, and gradually paling to dark olive- 

 green. April l5th : they moulted again (as I have before noticed in the case of 

 Z. trifolii, the moult takes place by the skin splitting all along the back), and again 

 came out darker than before. 



About the end of April they had attained their largest growth, — somewhat 

 less, I imagine, than would have been attained in a state of nature, the heat of 

 their position hastening their changes ; they were of the usual fat, soft Zygcena 

 figure, measuring in length, when in motion, f inch, when at rest f . Colour all 

 over a rich dark olive-green ; dorsal line dirty whitish, showing broadest and palest 

 at commencement of each segment ; on each side of it a row of eleven black velvet 

 round dots placed on front of each segment from 3rd to 13th ; below this a row of 

 eight yellow spots on segments 4th to 11th, placed on the hinder part of the seg- 

 ments in such a way that the yellow spot of each comes just below the black dot 

 of the segment behind it ; the spiracles black ; the belly rather paler than the 

 back ; the usual dots not visible ; each segment bearing in a transverse row eight 

 fascicles of stiff white hairs, five or six in a fascicle. 



I noticed throughout their growth these larvee moved and fed with most 

 energy in the sunshine. 



May 2nd. The four I retained begin to spin, fixing themselves on their glass 

 cylindei', and not on their food-plant ; two placed themselves horizontally, and the 

 other two in a perpendicular position ; the cocoon is dirty-white in colour, glis- 

 tening, and shorter — more truncate in form than that of trifolii or filipendulcB ; 

 and the pupa is brown in colour, the wing-cases being rather darker than the body, 

 and different individuals varying in depth of tint. When the moths, which are 

 rather under-size specimens, emerged (May 29th— June 1st), the empty pupa- 

 cases were not left sticking in the cocoons, but had fallen down near them. I was 

 not lucky enough to see a moth in the aot of emerging. 



With Mr. Buckler's kind assistance I have drawn up a short account of the 

 various descriptions and figures we could obtain of the larva of Minos and its sup- 

 posed varieties, from which it will be seen that the Irish larva is not quite like any 

 hitherto recorded. 



In the Annual for 1862 there is Zeller's account of whitish larvao on Pimpinella, 

 and yellow larvae found later on Thymus ; also Freyer's account of yellow, white, 

 and whitish-blue larvao, all of which ate Pimpinella by preference ; also Hering's 

 fuller description of the larva on Thymus, which comes nearer to our larva than 

 the others, though the ground-colour is yellow instead of olive-green, and there is 



