6788 



insects. 



colour, with beautiful dark markings down the back, the two anterior segments white 

 (inclining to pink), with a black stripe from the head to the third segment; then 

 begins a series of lozenge-shaped markings, gray and black all the way down, 

 spiracles black. It was found feeding on the common tea-tree (Lycium barbarum). — 

 J. M'Laren; Worley Barracks, Brentwood, October 25, 1859. 



Larva of Sphinx Convolvuli. — I found a larva, which I suppose to be that of 

 Sphinx Convolvuli, on the 5th of October, in a stubble-field near this place. It was 

 not feeding at the time, but I gave it Convolvulus arvensis; it did not seem to eat 

 much, but went underground and died. The colour was dark chocolate-brown; the 

 horn of exactly the same colour, smooth and slightly curved ; the head was striped 

 with yellowish white, and a waved band of the same colour extended the whole length 

 of the body along the side just below the spiracles, which were black, enclosed in a 

 light-coloured ring: on each side were seven oblique lateral stripes, nearly of the 

 ground-colour, but no dorsal stripe.— Henry Rogers ; Freshwater, Isle of Wight, 

 October 21, 1859. 



Larva of Sphinx Convolvuli. — " A larva, which I suppose to be that of Sphinx 

 Convolvuli, was lately found near this place : it was about the same size as that of 

 S. Ligustri; the colour dark olive-green, with an interrupted lateral white streak; 

 there were also two or more dots on each segment; the horn smooth and curved. It 

 fed sparingly on Convolvulus arvensis, but I did not observe that it ate Calistegia 

 Sepium, with which I supplied it." — Mr. W. H. Hayward, of Penzance, in a letter to 

 E. Newman. 



Larva of Sphinx Convolvuli. — I am iudebted to Mr. Doubleday for the loan of a 

 specimen of this rare larva : it was found in a potato-field in Hampshire. The colour 

 is almost black, and the caudal horn entirely so : below the spiracles on each side is a 

 distinct, rather broad and somewhat interrupted white stripe; there is no indication of 

 the oblique lateral stripes so common in the true Sphinges ; the horn is shorter than 

 in S. Ligustri, but bent in a similar manner: each segment is distinctly divided into 

 eight rings by the same number of longitudinal furrows: there is no evidence as to its 

 food. — Edward Newman. 



Larvce of Sphinx Convolvuli. — Last autumn, when at Deal, I had three larvae of 

 Sphinx Convolvuli brought to me, on the 7th of September, by a boy working in a 

 potato-field, who told me they fed on privet. I of course tried this, but they refused 

 it ; I then gave them Convolvulus arvensis and Sepium, both of which they 

 devoured greedily, and in a lew days went dowu in the sand, with which the box was 

 filled. I was obliged to dig them up when I left Deal, and found two had changed 

 to pupse; the third had died. The larva considerably resembles that of S. Ligustri, 

 but is of course larger and the colour is much duller, not the semi-transparent look 

 which the privet caterpillar has ; the side stripes are black, and two of them somewhat 

 broken up into lines of spots; below the black stripes one had pale yellow, about the 

 same breadth as the black; head with a black stripe on each side; the thoracic 

 segments entirely green; legs black; horn orange tipped with black; spiracles black, 

 edged with orange and again surrounded with black. They are not night-feeders, but 

 very lazy, and I never saw them assume the Sphinx posture. I went to the place 

 where the boy found them, but the field was all ploughed up and nothing green left: 

 his first statement that they fed on privet turned out to be the result of confounding 

 them with the privet larva), which he had previously found. — T. Syme ; VZyGordon 

 Street, W.C., November 7, 1859. 



