THE YOUNG NATUEALIST. 



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have a green stain, often very pretty in colour, and it is most probable that 

 a strong irremovable dye might be manufactured from " squashed larvse." 

 These larvae seem subject to a very infectious disease, so highly so that if one 

 larva touches another that is suffering from it, it takes it and dies. Perhaps 

 some of your readers can tell me the disease ; it affects the larva as follows : 

 It eats no food, looks sickly, frass very watery (not often the case when 

 healthy and fed on whitethorn ; as arboreal food very rarely causes watery 

 frass, whereas low plants generally do), rests in a straight position, turns a 

 yellow colour before death, which occurs about a couple of days after being 

 seized, and smells terribly after death, in fact the larvse appear to be quite 

 putrid and rotten almost before death. I lost upwards of 80 by this com- 

 plaint, and the remainder pupated from July 9th to 15th. 



Stabilis hatched on May 5th, and another batch on May 12th, found by 

 Dr. Chapman deposited in a crevice of a fir tree, together with the female, 

 a dark well-marked specimen. I have kept this brood separate in order to 

 see if they produce any differently marked specimens than the other batch, 

 which were laid by a light female. This larva is exceedingly similar to that 

 of H. proteus, but may be distinguished by being speckled all over with 

 minute black dots. They cling tenaciously to the food-plant, and hang sus- 

 pended by a thread when disturbed. The first lot began to pupate on July 

 2nd, and the second lot on July 9th. It is an easy species to rear and a 

 pretty larva. 



Miniosa hatched on May 7th. They are very nice larvse to feed until 

 about half-grown, and then are very fond of turning cannibals, and preferring 

 their fellow creatures to arboreal food, as I found to my cost. I had about 

 50 larvae which began mysteriously to disappear, and occasionally I found 

 one mutilated and half-eaten, but until I caught one in the act I did not 

 think they were to blame, as I assigned it to a C. trapezina or 8, safellitia 

 that was lurking somewhere in the cage, though I could never find it. How- 

 ever, I found out who were the culprits, and immediately separated them, 

 but only succeeded in saving 21. They pupated on June 12th. 



Munda hatched on May 1st. While young they are gregarious, feeding 

 all together on a leaf, and are very lively. They are easy to rear, and are 

 very fond of clustering together when full-fed, but especially so when 

 moulting, when about a dozen of them spin a common web to undergo their 

 change of skin. The larva took readily to oak, and pupated about 

 June 28th. 



Cruda hatched on May 7th. They are savage looking larvae, with a 

 very conspicuous shining jet black head. They are fearful cannibals, worse 

 than miniosa, almost equal to 6 f . satellitia, but not quite so bad as trapezina. 



