1868.] 



109 



NOTES ON THE EARLIER STAGES OF SOME SPECIES OF LITIIOSIDJE. 

 BY THE REY. JOHN HELLINS, M.A. 



The lichen-feeding Lithosid(S are generally so troublesome to 

 manage, that I feel a sort of satisfaction in announcing that I have this 

 summer succeeded in obtaining the imago of four out of the five species, 

 whose eggs last year came into my care. Not that I have very much 

 to boast of, for although in the case of griseola I believe I stumbled upon 

 one at least of its natural pabula, and so kept alive nearly twenty larvsB ; 

 of the other species it was but a scanty remnant that appeared in the 

 winged state, and mesomella perished before half grown. 



Lithosia molijhdeola (Gin.), sericea (Gregson). Mr. Doubleday 

 most kindly transmitted to me some eggs he had received of this species, 

 and by the time the parcel reached me (July 26tli, 1867,) the young 

 larvre had appeared. Most of the brood must have soon perished, but 

 the three which lived till September were tben about half-an-inch long ; 

 and the two final survivors spun up before the end of May, and appeared 

 as moths on July 3rd and 4th, 1868. 



I could never see that they ate any food I gave them freely ; but 

 at difi"erent times I saw that they had eaten a little of various lichens 

 from trees or banks, wall moss, withered sallow and oak leaves, slices of 

 turnip and carrot, and knot grass, and they must have thriven as well 

 as they would have if they had been at large, for the two bred moths 

 were not at all smaller than captured specimens.* 



I noticed, not in this species only, but in all the LitJiosidce larvae I 

 had, that the characteristic markings and tints were assumed very early 

 — long before they had attained a quarter of their growth. 



When full-grown this larva is rather more than three quarters of 

 an inch in length ; moderately stout, uniform in bulk ; head very hard 

 and shining ; all the tubercles crowned with tufts of short hairs, mixed 

 with a few longer ones ; of the dorsal tubercles the front pair are small, 

 and the hinder pair very large. 



The ground colour, when seen between the tufts of hair, is a dead 

 blackish-grey ; but the segmental folds are black ; there is a rich vel- 

 vety, very black, dorsal stripe ; the sub- dorsal line, being broken on 

 each segment by the hinder tubercle with its tuft of hair, must be 

 rather called a row of elongated particoloured spots, each beginning on 

 the hinder part of a segment, and continued across the fold into the 

 next segment, until stopped by the tubercle ; the colours being white 



* I trust, from what Mr. Doubleday tells rae, that Mr. Greening has now a clue to the right food. 



