5 



ON THE STUDY OF THE LARVAE OF LEPIDOPTERA. 



By G. T. Porrit^, F.L.S. 



I SHOULD like to write a few words to our Yorkshire lepidopterists, 

 on the advisability of paying more attention than they have hitherto 

 done to the earlier, and more particularly to the larval stages of our 

 lepidoptera. There is now comparatively little scope so far as the 

 imagos of our macro-lepidoptera are concerned, as we are tolerably 

 well acquainted with them ; and fresh species turn up so sparingly, 

 that one may work on and on for year after year without meeting 

 with one. In the larvse this is very different, for although very rapid 

 strides have been made during the last few years, chiefly through the 

 instrumentality of Messrs. Buckler, Hellins, and a few others, the 

 larvae of a good number of our commonest moths are still amongst 

 the " unknown." And even amongst those that have been discovered, 

 what a large number there are totally unknown except to but a few 

 entomologists. How many of our Yorkshire lepidopterists, for 

 instance, are thoroughly acquainted with the larva? of such abundant 

 species as Pieris napi, Asthena ca7ididata, Acidalia bisetata, scutulata 

 and remutata, Emmelesia decolorata and alhulata, Melanippe montanata 

 and fluctuata, Leucania impura and pallens, Hydracia nictitans and 

 micacea, Xylophasia lithoxylea as distinct from that of polyodon^ 

 Luperina testacea, Apamea oculea, Miana strigilis, and hosts of others ? 

 We have spent so much time feeding up JBomhyces, and showy and 

 easily obtainable things, that other, quite as common, but more obscure 

 species have been completely lost sight of. 



It is no doubt quite true that many very common larvse are exceed- 

 ingly difficult to find, and even when found, are still more difficult to 

 keep alive, but this ought to make us more anxious to get at their 

 history. Since the old, and formerly considered almost insuperable 

 difficulty of preserving the natural colours of larvas, is now, happily, 

 to a great extent done away with, it is very pleasing to note how 

 rapidly, during the last three or four years, the desire to have the 

 larva along with the imago in our cabinets has grown amongst 

 lepidopterists, and we have every reason to congratulate ourselves 

 that one of our own entomologists, and a member of our West Riding 

 Society (Mr. S. L. Mosley), was one of the first to do this as perfectly 

 as anyone had previously succeeded. This will doubtless, bring the 

 study of larvge much more prominently before lepidopterists than 

 would otherwise have been the case^ so that I trust we can now 



