i8g 4 .] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



59 



304). In addition we read: — "Major reliquis nostratibus et tota nivea. 

 Thorax fasciculi tribus. Alas superiores ultra medium bifide margine 

 postico ciliatae. Inferiores quinquepartitae : quinto libero ; rachidibus 

 omnium imbricatis squamis " (''Fauna Suecica," No. 1457). There 

 is no doubt that the phrase " Inferiores quinquepartitae " is an error. 

 The term " quinquepartitae " should be applied to both wings combined. 



Ovum — Mr. Albert Miiller writes the following- notes on the 

 oviposition of this species. He says: — "At eleven o'clock in the 

 evening of the 18th July last, a 'plume,' which Mr. Stainton has kindly 

 determined as above, came to my lamp, and at last settled on the book 

 I was reading. After being confined for a few minutes under a glass 

 bell on the mantelpiece, it laid, at intervals of a few seconds, eleven 

 minute, oval, white, semi-opaque ova. The next morning I found it 

 lying dead on the eggs, which were loosely scattered about. Mr. 

 Stainton having informed me that the larva eats leaves ot Convolvulus 

 arvensis in May, I conclude that the ' plume ' was attracted by two pots 

 planted with an exotic Convolvulus, and standing in the immediate 

 vicinity of the window through which it made its entrance " ( " En- 

 tomologist's Monthly Magazine,*' Vol. IX., p. 144). 



Larva — The larva of this species is of a green colour, almost exactly 

 of the shade of the convolvulus leaves on which it feeds, with a yellow 

 spot on the posterior portion of each segment. Mr. Porritt writes : — " On 

 the 4th of July of last year, I received eggs of this species from Mr. W. H. 

 B. Fletcher, deposited by a moth he had taken at Worthing. Five days 

 later they hatched, and the newly-emerged larvae were white, and 

 clothed with long white hairs. They fed for a short time on convolvulus 

 but hibernated early, when still very small. In April, they re-commenced 

 feeding, but by the 15th were only a little over a quarter of an inch in 

 length. From that time they grew rapidly, and by the 5th of May, the 

 largest was nearly full-grown. Length, nearly three-quarters of an inch, 

 and of average build. Head polished, it has the lobes rounded, and is a 

 little narrower than the second segment. Body cylindrical, and fairly 

 uniform, tapering only a very little towards the extremities. Segmental 

 divisions clearly defined, the tubercles prominent, and from each of them 

 springs a tuft of moderately stiff hairs ; in the tuft of hairs from the 

 tubercles on segments 2, 3, 4, 12 and 13, is a single hair much longer 

 than the rest, which stands out very conspicuously. Skin, soft and 

 smooth, but only very slightly glossy. Ground colour of a median shade 

 of dark green, exactly the colour, indeed, of the convolvulus leaf, on 

 which it feeds. On the dorsal area, however, the ground colour only 

 appears as a large lozenge-shaped mark on each segment except the 9th, 

 the remaining space on each segment and the whole of the 9th segment 

 being filled with bright lemon yellow. The darker green alimentary 

 canal shows through as the dorsal line ; there are no perceptible dorsal 



