112 



[October, 



The larvae from the first were little dingy foggy -looking fellows, 

 with a quantity of fine hair on their backs ; and although after the 

 last moult their plumes became denser and darker than before, yet a 

 description of the last stage is applicable throughout. 



"When full-grown, the length is a trifle over half-an-inch, the hairs 

 that project before and behind making it look a little longer, the figure 

 stout, uniform in bulk ; the skin very shining, but densely covered with 

 plumes ; segments 2 and 13 are furnished only with short simple hairs, 

 but the other segments have each six whorls of wonderful plumose 

 verticillate hairs, those on 3 to 7 being full one-eighth of an inch 

 high, and those on 8 to 1 2 a little shorter, while along the sides and 

 just above the feet are tufts of plain hairs ; when looking at one of 

 them in motion, I could not help mentally comparing it to an animated 

 hearse with palish plumes. 



The colour of the skin, when it can be seen, is a waxy dark drab ; 

 the plumes from the head to segment 7 are blackish mouse colour, and 

 the rest a paler tint of the same. "When disturbed, the larva puts its 

 nose and heels together, bending itself into a circle, with the tufts 

 standing out apart. 



The cocoon is a long oval in shape, very slight but close in texture, 

 the silk wonderfully interwoven with the cast-ofi" plumes stuck upright, 

 so that whilst fresh and uninjured by rain it might at first sight be 

 mistaken for the larva ; one which I watched in progress was com- 

 pletely finished, so far as outward appearance went, in four-and-twenty 

 hours. The pupa is short, reddish-brown in colour, the cast larva-skin 

 adhering to the anal segments. 



Mr. Buckler kindly allows me to incorporate with my notes the 

 following descriptions made by him of two other species of Lithosia, 

 which he has lately figured from specimens supplied by the kind libe- 

 rality of Mr. Machin. 



Litliosia helveola. Youv larva), not fiir from full growth, received 

 on June 13th ; their food being a large coarse lichen growing on the 

 bark of yew trees. In a few days they had spun rather loose cocoons, 

 with a few grains of earth attached to the silk, on the under-side of the 

 pieces of bark. The moths appeared July 2nd— Gth. 



AVhen full grown, the larva is nearly three quarters of an inch in 

 length, moderately stout, with the posterior segments tapering slightly 

 towards the tail. All the tubercles furnished with tufts of hair. 



