132 
Psyche 
[June 
In all, six larvae were found, four devouring soft millipedes, 
one eating a beetle pupa, and one, taken by my assistant, was 
reported to me as feeding on a chrysomelid larva but the host 
was not brought in for identification. It was attempted to raise 
all the larvae and no specimen was preserved, so that only a field 
description of the stage can be given. The full-grown larva is 
dirty white in color, with a gray, median, dorsal line extending 
from the thoracic segments to the posterior tip of the body. The 
length varies, probably with the size of the host, from 7 to 10 
mm., the form is always stout and spindle-shaped, the head- 
capsule elongate. The three pairs of thoracic legs are so short in 
comparison with the unwieldy bulk of the body that at this 
stage, at least, the larva is incapable of active or extended move- 
ment. As eggs were not obtained, the full duration of the larval 
stage is unknown. The period of active feeding, however, is 
very short. The specimen first mentioned completed its meal of 
a beetle pupa and became 8 cm. long in a little over twenty-four 
hours. Another which fed upon a soft millipede grew in length 
from 4 mm. to 9 mm. and increased several times in bulk in 
about forty-eight hours. Only one of the six larvae was success- 
fully brought to maturity. 
When first formed the pupa is entirely whitish, but it as- 
sumes darker colours as it matures. Twenty-four hours after 
pupation the eyes are faintly gray, in another day they have 
become brown, and after seventy-two hours are entirely black. 
At the end of the fourth day the eyes are black, the mandibles 
brown, and the posterior tarsi darkened. The duration of the 
pupal stage in the only specimen that was raised from larva to 
adult was five days. Two pupae found in the field, whose age at 
collection I estimated from the colour to be one or two days, 
emerged four days later. The pupal period, therefore, is in the 
the order of five or six days. Eight pupae in all were found in the 
field; naked, in small cavities four to eight centimetres deep in 
the soil. Only two of these emerged as adults; injury at the 
time of excavation accounting for the high mortality. 
When it first emerges the adult beetle is still cream-coloured, 
but rapidly darkens and in a day is quite black though the chitin 
