74 Augudt, 
About Februaiy 20tli, 1868, I noticed four or five of them moving in the 
sunshine, and some of the tender shoots of the thyme showed marks of their jaws 
being at work ; and at this date I noted down the following description : — Length, 
^ inch ; colour, all over a pinkish-brovra ; some faint traces of sub-dorsal rows of 
black and yellow spots ; hairs arranged in little tufts. March 7th : larvae sickened 
for moulting ; about 14th all appeared in a new dress ; colour immediately after 
moult a dull blackish rifle-green, the upper spots showing like black velvet, and the 
lower row being now distinct and of a primrose -yellow ; some of the hairs black, 
some whitish. As they fed and gi'ew, their colour became lighter, and about this 
time four of the nine disappeai-ed — I suppose having sickened and died ; but the 
thyme was now so dense I could not find them. April 1st : the five survivors moulted 
again — as before, coming out almost black, and gradually paling to dark olive- 
green. April l5th : they moulted again (as I have before noticed in the case of 
Z. trifoUi, the moult takes place by the skin splitting all along the back), and again 
came out dai'ker than before. 
About the end of April they had attained their largest growth, — somewhat 
less, I imagine, than would have been attained in a state of nature, the heat of 
their position hastening their changes ; they were of the usual fat, soft Zygcena 
figure, measuring in length, when in motion, f inch, when at rest |. Colour all 
over a rich dark olive-green ; dorsal line dirty whitish, showing broadest and palest 
at commencement of each segment ; on each side of it a row of eleven black velvet 
round dots placed on front of each segment from 3rd to 13th ; below this a row of 
eight yellow spots on segments 4th to 11th, placed on the hinder part of the seg- 
ments in such a way that the yellow spot of each comes just below the black dot 
of the segment behind it ; the spiracles black ; the belly rather paler than the 
back ; the usual dots not visible ; each segment bearing in a transverse row eight 
fascicles of stiff white hairs, five or six in a fascicle. 
I noticed throughout their growth these larvae moved and fed with most 
energy in the sunshine. 
May 2nd. The four I retained begin to spin, fixing themselves on their glass 
cylinder, and not on their food-plant ; two placed themselves horizontally, and the 
other two in a perpendicular position ; the cocoon is dirty -white in colour, glis- 
tening, and shorter — more truncate in form than that of trifolii or filipendulce ; 
and the pupa is brown in colour, the wing-cases being rather darker than the body, 
and different individuals varying in depth of tint. When the moths, which are 
rather under-size specimens, emerged (May 29th— June 1st), the empty pupa- 
cases were not left sticking in the cocoons, but had fallen down near them. I was 
not lucky enough to see a moth in the act of emerging. 
With Mr. Buckler's kind assistance I have drawn up a short account of the 
various descriptions and figures we could obtain of the larva of Minos and its sup- 
posed varieties, from which it will be seen that the Irish larva is not quite like any 
hitherto recorded. 
In the Annual for 1862 there is Zeller's account of whitish larvas on Pimpinella, 
and yellow larvae found later on Thymus; also Freyer's account of yellow, white, 
and whitish-blue larvae, all of which ate Pimpinella by preference ; also Bering's 
fuller description of the larva on Thymus, which comes nearer to om* larva than 
the others, though the ground-colour is yellow instead of olive-green, and there is 
