I893-] THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



thoracic segments, is clean cut backwards with an upward slope, and 

 the summit of this slope is crested with a row of minute rough points, 

 or blunt hooks, extending unbroken across the back, rather near 

 towards the spiracular region ; on the middle portion of the remainder 

 of each of these segments is a broadish oblong transverse band of the 

 rough points dorsally divided by a naked, or nearly naked, interval of 

 smooth skin ; similar points occur also across the thoracic segments, 

 but in a narrower shape and on the second they fill up the usual form 

 of plate there ; those of the twelfth segment, and the front of the 

 thirteenth are very much coarser, and closely aggregated. The colour 

 of the shining head is light yellowish-brown, tinged with deeper 

 brown on the crown of each lobe, the ocelli and mouth darker brown 

 again ; the body is of a slightly livid flesh colour, becoming a trifle 

 paler and yellower on the three or four hinder segments ; a distinctly 

 paler dorsal line is visible, and bisects both the bands of blackish 

 rough points, and the anterior plate of them, though on this last it is 

 a mere fine thread ; the skin generally is smooth, and glistens a little ; 

 the 'spiracles are circular, a trifle raised, wart-like, brown in colour, 

 with a whitish centre ; above each spiracle is a wart-like tubercular 

 slight eminence, on the sloping surface, in front of the segments, are 

 a pair of transversely elongate oval black-brown rough spots ; the anal 

 tip is dark brown " (" Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. XII., 

 pp. 234-236). So much for the life-history of the summer brood. 

 The moths, which emerge in August, appear to lay their eggs at once 

 and to feed in a similar manner to the first brood, but beyond the 

 statement of Mr. South which I have quoted below, the correctness 

 of which was challenged by Mr. Bignell and which is certainly 

 erroneous in some particulars no record of the hybernating larva 

 seems to have appeared. The pupation of the hybernating larva, 

 however, takes place very early in the year and these autumn and 

 winter larvae produce imagines towards the end of May. In the 

 " Entomologist," Vol. XV., p. 103, Mr. South says the "larvae feed on 

 the flowers of Eupatorium cannabinum " and adds : — r" The larva hyber- 

 nates on branches or stems of its food-plant, the common hemp 

 agrimony. It makes a hole just below one of the joints, and gnaws its 

 way upwards for about half-an-inch above the joint ; here it prepares 

 a snug chamber, in which it remains as a larva until April, when it 

 turns to a pupa. When, as sometimes happens, a larva pierces the 

 stem midway between the joints, a slight thickening of the skin etc., 

 is observed just above the hole " (" Entomologist," Vol. XV., p. 103). 

 This was a strange blunder after Mr. Buckler's previous lucid 

 description of the larva and its habits, and not only was the error 

 of feeding on the flowers incorrect, but, the method of pupation 

 described appears to be equally erroneous, as it certainly hybernates 



