8698 



Insects, 



longitudinal series : on each side is a moderately broad stripe, which includes the 

 spiracles, of a clear bright yellow ; it commences immediately behind the head, and 

 terminates on the 1 2th segment; ventral surface black, with a yellow lunule above 

 each of the legs, and two approximate, inconspicuous and sinuous narrow median 

 stripes of a dusky gray : legs and claspers dingy black : it feeds during the summer 

 months chiefly on Achillea Millefolium (yarrow), but also on grasses ; indeed it does 

 not seem very fastidious about its food-plant: when full-fed it buries itself in the loose 

 sand, sometimes to the depth of four inches, but generally not so deep : there is no 

 perceptible web or cocoon. The pupa? remain in the sand throughout the winter, and 

 the perfect insects begin to emerge at the end of February, and continue to come out 

 until the end of March. I am indebted to the Rev. Percy Andrews, who received them 

 from Mr. Birchall, for specimens of this larva, and to Mr. Birchall for information 

 respecting its economy. — Edward Newman. 



Description of the Larva of Abraxas grossulariata. — I have seen the females of this 

 species busily engaged in oviposition, not only in the evening, but even in the middle 

 of a warm summer's day, depositing a single egg on a leaf of gooseberry or black cur- 

 rant, and then flying off to another. I once counted ten females simultaneously occu- 

 pied in this manner along a garden wall less than eighty yards in length. Like the 

 eggs of diurnal Lepidoptera, they remain but a short time before hatching: the young 

 hirva feeds for two, three or four weeks, rarely longer, and then spins together the edges 

 of a gooseberry-leaf, having first taken the precaution of making the leaf fast to its 

 twig by numerous silken cables, which prevent the possibility of its falling when de- 

 hiscence takes place in the autumn : in the little cradle thus fabricated the infant larva 

 feeds as securely and as fearlessly as the sailor in his hammock ; snow storms and 

 wintry winds are matters of indifference to him ; but no sooner have the gooseberry- 

 bushes begun to assume their livery of green in the spring, than instinct informs him 

 that food is prepared to satisfy his appetite ; so he cuts an opening in his pensile 

 cradle, emerges, and begins to eat. The larva commonly rests in a straight posture, 

 lying parallel with the branch ; but when annoyed it elevates its back, and tucks in its 

 head until it is brought into contact with the abdominal claspers; if the annoyance be 

 continued it falls from its food, hanging by a thread, rarely falling to the ground ; but 

 when this is the case it is bent double, and remains a long time in that posture. Head 

 rather small, prone, partially retractile into the 2nd segment, scarcely notched on the 

 crown ; body of uniform thickness, without excrescences. Head emitting a few strong 

 black hairs, intense black, with the exception of the clypeus and base of the antennal 

 papilla?, which are white : body cream-coloured, with a reddish orange lateral stripe 

 below the spiracles ; this is conspicuous on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th segments, 

 less so at each extremity : the whole of the 2nd segment, and the ventral surface of 

 the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th segments, is of the same orange-red colour as 

 the lateral stripe ; along the middle of the back is a series of large but irregular black 

 spots ; these are generally three in number — two amorphous, transversely placed and 

 small, the third trapezoid, much larger, and quite as broad as the other two; they 

 assume an altered form on the 10th, 11th and 12th segments ; below these is a series 

 of small streak-like black spots, and again below these, but above the lateral orange 

 stripe, is an irregular series of rather larger amorphous black spots; below the orange 

 stripe is an interrupted black stripe on each side, and on the belly are two distinct and 

 continuous black stripes : legs black : claspers blotched with black. Feeds in gardens 

 on Ribes grossularia and R. nigrum (gooseberry and black currant), and more rarely 



