8778 



Insects. 



in a dark crescentic mark on each side of the mouth ; mandibles black ; ground colour 

 of the body smoky green, the warts paler, the pale medio-dorsal stripe only visible on 

 the 2nd, 3rd and 4th segments; an interrupted whitish lateral stripe, composed of a 

 series of pale amorphous blotches, is very conspicuous ; the spiracles are white, the 

 bristles are brown, a few longer hairs generally black ; the ventral surface dingy 

 smoky green ; the legs and claspers brown. In August or September it descends to 

 the surface of the earth, and spins a slight brown cocoon, denuding itself of its bristles, 

 and interweaving them with the silk of the cocoon ; it still retains on each wart a 

 fascicle of short, pale, radiating hairs ; in this receptacle it changes to a pupa, and 

 remains in that state until the following May. — Edward Newman. 



Description of the Larva of Arctia Menthastri. — The eggs are laid about the 

 middle of June, on the leaves of a number of herbaceous plants, as several species of 

 Rumex (dock) and Plantago (plantain), sometimes on Urtica dioica and U. urens 

 (stinging nettles), and very commonly on the different species of Mentha (mint), where 

 these occur; also on Uhnus campestris (elm), when growing dwarfed as in hedges; 

 and in gardens on dwarf-beans, scarlet-runners, beet, &c. : the eggs are laid in patches 

 of from forty to eighty each, and, hatching in about ten days, the young larva? feed 

 in company, eating only one of the cuticles and the parenchyma of the leaf, and 

 leaving the nei-work of veins connected by the other cuticle ; they are at first very 

 pale-coloured, with a series of dark warts on each segment, out of each of which springs 

 one or more dark hairs: after the second ecdysis the larva? separate, and gradually be- 

 come darker in colour, and are full-fed in August, when they may commonly be found 

 at rest in a straight position on the under side of a leaf during the day : if disturbed 

 they fall from the food-plant and feign death, rolling in a compact ring, but main- 

 taining that position only a few seconds, and then unfolding and travelling with great 

 activity. The head is porrected in crawling ; it is very glabrous, and decidedly nar- 

 rower than the body : the body is of nearly uniform breadth throughout ; the segments 

 very distinct, and the incisions between them very deep ; each segment has a trans- 

 verse series of twelve warts, two of which — approximate, dorsal and smaller than the 

 others — are placed in advance of the series ; in addition to this series of twelve warts 

 on each segment, the 5th, 6th, 11th, 12th and 13th segments have each two small 

 approximate warts on the ventral surface ; each of the warts emits a fascicle of radi- 

 ating hairs, those from the middle of the wart being longer than the rest. Head dark 

 brown in front, with a median pale longitudinal line ; the sides are also pale, the an- 

 tennal papillae and labrum being white : body dark brown, nearly black, slightly paler 

 on the sides, and having a medio-dorsal and very distinct, narrow, orange-red stripe, 

 extending from the 3rd to the 12th segments, both inclusive ; on the 2nd segment 

 this stripe is also perceptible, but much paler and less conspicuous ; the legs and 

 claspers are nearly black, and the hairs, which are so long and numerous as almost to 

 hide the body, always excepting the bright dorsal stripe, are generally very dark brown, 

 and sometimes jet-black ; the spiracles are white. After ceasing to feed the larva 

 sheds all its hairs, with the exception of a slight lateral fringe below the spiracles, 

 the colour of the skin becomes paler, and there is some appearance of a pale lateral 

 stripe ; the warts are now black, and very conspicuously contrast with the paler 

 ground colour ; and the second series on each side is composed of larger, darker and 

 more conspicuous warts than the rest : the hairs shed at this period are incorporated 

 with the slight web-like cocoon which the larva spins on the surface of the earth from 

 the middle to the end of August, and in which it turns to a pupa, remaining in that 



