THE GENUS ACRONYCTA AND ITS ALLIES. 
12B 
reasons in favour of such a supposition seem otherwise want- 
ing. The disposition of the tubercles is that normal in the 
other species. 
After the first moult (2nd skin), the general impression is of 
a black larva, but really it is rufo-fuscous, with a white dorsal 
and sub-dorsal line, but the tubercles are very large and black, 
their bases being nearly continuous. On the second segment 
the tubercles are separably distinguishable, although apparently 
fused together. On 3 and 4 the tubercles are smaller, and 
these segments look pale and brindled ; on 5, 6, 7, 8, g and 
12, the tubercles are so large as to make these segments look 
black, they stand up very pointedly, terminating in a stiff 
bristle, and there is a transverse ridge connecting the anterior 
trapezoidals and another, still more pronounced, connecting the 
posterior ; on the loth segment, the tubercles are smaller and 
like large black islets on a white area. On the iith, they are 
quite small and the segment looks nearly white. The 12th 
segment is decidedly humped with pronounced tubercles. The 
13th and 14th look white. There are pale dorsal, sub-dorsal 
and lateral lines, and the 12th segment is white beneath. The 
pointedness of the tubercles gives an angularity to each seg- 
ment taken individually, essentially of the same character as 
that which I have called echinate, where the tubercles have 
several hairs, here they have only one. 
In the 3rd skin (after 2nd moult), it has assumed the bird 
dirt plumage, which is so well known as characteristic of the 
immature larva, and which is as much or more pronounced in 
the next (4th) skin. It is to be remarked that the whiteness 
of the nth segment (pale colour being one of the charac- 
teristics of this segment as ‘‘weak” in the Acronyctas) of the 
newly hatched larva, is the basis from which the white area of 
the terminal segment has been gradually developed, making this 
larva of all the others, the one that carries this feature to a 
marked degree to so late a stage as the 4th skin. 
The head and following segments to the loth are black 
dorsally, with indications of a white dorsal, and a pale sub- 
dorsal line, chiefly as yellowish marks at the incisions of the 
segments. The 4th, and to some extent the 3rd, have this 
most pronounced. On the 4th segment, the anterior aspect 
of the hump which the trapezoidals make on each segment is 
orange yellow. The white lateral line is here also most 
obvious, giving altogether a paler mottled tone to the 3rd and 
4th segments. The loth segment, described as black, has 
