ioo First Report on Economic Zoology . 
Most of the small “leather-jackets” infesting gardens are of this 
species ; they especially attack lettuce, peas, young brassicae, and 
garden flowering plants. 
There are two broods during the year, and in some seasons 
possibly a third. Curtis records them as early as May. I have 
taken it in numbers as late as August. 
The adult (Fig. 11, 3) is yellow, the abdomen having a broad 
interrupted dorsal line ; the head has a dark triangular patch behind ; 
the thorax three black stripes, the lateral pair curved outwards at the 
front end ; and the sides (pleurae) before the lialteres blackish-brown 
on three sides. The wings are transparent with a pale brown stigma. 
The thin delicate legs are testaceous, dusky towards the tips. In 
length this species varies from a little under to half an inch. 
The eggs of P. maculosa are oval and jet black. The larvae when 
mature are never more than three-quarters of an inch long. In 
colour they are earthy and the skin is wrinkled, but not tough as in 
the Tipulce. They are cylindrical, somewhat attenuated at each end ; 
the alimentary canal shows through the skin, above and below, as a 
broad dark stripe. Each segment has a transverse row of four stiff 
bristles, the inner ones of each row the shorter ; laterally are short, 
stiff, black hairs. They can at once be told from the large leather- 
jackets when the latter are immature, i.e., about the size of mature 
maculosa grubs, by the anal processes ; in this species the truncated 
tail has two hooks or papilke, and two short ones between them, with 
two blunt tubercles below and two fleshy protuberances capable of 
dilatation and contraction ; there are also two central spiracles ; 
between each stigma and the ventral papilloe a transverse row of 
three small dark brown spots. They reach maturity in the spring 
and pupate in the soil. The pupae are brown to golden brown in 
colour, slightly narrower than the larva?, and have the two straight 
cephalic horns ; the abdominal segments have each a row of minute 
spines above and six large ones beneath, and on either side an 
elevated spiny line, the penultimate segment has six long spines and 
two small ones, and there is a large conical process at the tail with a 
shorter one beneath it. Curtis describes them as not only eating 
roots, but also eating off trusses of the strawberry flowers close to the 
crown. He also found them in May at the roots of lilacs and 
amongst the roots of grass ; they also destroyed carrots, raspberry and 
strawberry roots, lettuces and various flowers. Miss Ormerod, as 
previously noted, gives records of its damage in the Scottish uplands, 
where its working was mistaken for that of the larva of the Antler 
Moth (Charccas graminis). 
