Insects. 



8779 



state throughout the winter, the perfect insect emerging iu the May or June fol- 

 lowing.— Ed wa rd Newman . 



Poisonous Property of the Larva of Liparis auriflua. — I was mueh interested by 

 your observations (Zool. 8730) on the valvular openings in the larvae of the genus 

 Liparis, and it occurred to me that they might be for the purpose of emitting some 

 poisonous vapour or pungent acid, as in the squirt of Dicranura vinula. One of my 

 boys a year ago was twice affected in an extraordinary manner after handling larvae of 

 Liparis auriflua : his eyes were quite swollen up, and his face covered with large 

 blotches. He might have conveyed the poison to his face on his fingers, but his hands 

 were uot inflamed at all ; and I am inclined to think that the insects squirted or 

 puffed something inio his face as he stooped over to examine them. I remember 

 some lime ago reading a similar account of a lady who had been dissecting this same 

 larva, and whose face had inflamed in consequence : it was in some small popular 

 book on insects. — E. Morton ; Lower Wick, Worcester, September 15, 1863. 



[As was to be anticipated, I have received numerous inquiries as to the use of 

 these medio- dorsal spiracles, if so they may be called : I can only say in reply that I 

 have published all I know respecting them. — E. Newman.~\ 



Description of the Larva of Liparis Salicis. — The eggs are laid in rows, in early 

 autumn, on the bark of the Populus dilatata (the Lombardy poplar), and occasion- 

 ally on Salix viridis and S. alba, and probably other species of willow ; they are 

 always covered and protected during the winter by a white downy substance, evidently 

 from the body of the parent moth ; they hatch in April, and are full-grown in June. 

 The full-fed larva rests by day in a straight position, very commonly on the trunk of 

 its food-plant, and in this situation is a very conspicuous object; it reascends the tree 

 in the evening, and feeds principally in the night. Head nearly of the same width as 

 the body : body of equal width throughout, rather depressed ; each segment has a 

 transverse series of eight rather conspicuous warts, each of which emits a radiating 

 fascicle of hairs ; those of the series on each side nearest the median line of the back 

 are stiff and bristle-like ; on the following or middle series of warts, which is situated 

 just above the spiracles, the hairs are of two kinds, those on the upper or dorsal side 

 of the wart stiff and bristle-like, .those on the lower or spiracular side, long and silky; 

 indeed this series of warts is distinctly double on the 3rd and 4th segments, and ses- 

 quialterous on the others; the 2nd segment has a connected transverse series of warts, 

 composed of one wart from each longitudinal series, but all fused as it were into a 

 continuous mass ; on the 5th and 6th segments severally are two transversely-placed, 

 curved, horn-like processes, the extremities of which lean outwards ; on the lOih and 

 11th segments severally is a nearly circular, median, valvular, dorsal opening. Head 

 black and slightly hairy, the hairs very slender, soft and of a whitish hue: median 

 stripe of the back intense velvety black, interrupted by a series of eleven pale lemon- 

 coloured, or sometimes white, double blotches, each of which is intermediate between 

 two segments, half on the anterior, half on the posterior margin of each: when the 

 larva rests each pair of blotches seems united into one, but when it crawls the division 

 becomes obvious ; on each side of these median lemon-coloured blotches, and also 

 within the median black stripe, is a series of very irregular and very small spots of 

 the same delicate colour; sides of the larva gray ; warts red-brown ; bristles red-brown, 

 interspersed with a few black ones ; long hairs on the sides pale yellow ; dorsal pro- 

 cesses black, dorsal valves reddish ; legs black ; claspers red-brown. It spins a slight 

 web on the trunk of its food-plant, and in this it changes to a hairy pupa, iu which 



