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transverse lines, and are so continued on to the other side, thus 
forming along the back a series of transversely elongated lozenges, 
touching one another at their obtuse angles. The larva feeding looks 
very like a depressed Helix (shell) with the mollusc out and crawling. 
Very similar to these are the larvae of Chr. polita and BanJcsi , both of 
which I have reared from the egg to the imago ; and fastuosa has the 
same essential characters, at least as far as I was able to trace them, 
which was up to the completion of the first moult.* These four species 
feed on labiate plants : polita and varians on Mentha , BanJcsi on 
Stachys , and fastuosa on Lamium. Stephens placed the latter beetle 
in his sub-genus Gastrophysa , Chevrolat along with raphani and 
polygoni , living on plants of a different natural order — Polygonacea. 
The points in which fastuosa agrees with polita and BanJcsi, and differs 
from G. raphani, may be stated as follows : the glutinous matter ac- 
companying the eggs, and which, according to Yon Siebold, is the 
disintegrated portion of the tunica propria which accompanies them 
into the oviduct, is very abundant in Gastropliysa, dries up very slowly, 
and remains always more or less sticky. In Chrysomela it is scanty 
and dries up quickly into a brittle substance, so that the eggs, when 
in clusters, are readily broken asunder and scattered about like ripe 
seeds. The eggs in hatching, open in both cases, by a longitudinal 
slit over the dorsum of the larva; but, in Gastropliysa, the empty 
shell remains gaping, and tends to collapse, whilst in Chrysomela, the 
slit closes so accurately and the shell retains its original shape so 
completely, that it is often difficult to tell whether the larva has 
escaped. I have seen a young larva of BanJcsi that had come out of 
the egg tail first, caught by the neck in the elastic shell, which it 
dragged after it but could not escape from, like a mouse in a trap. 
In Chrysomela the eye-spots are six, in two rows of three each, on 
each side of the head. In Gastrophysa the external spot of the pos- 
terior row is wanting. Very conspicuous on the meso- and meta- 
thorax of the Gastrophysa embryo within the shell are four large 
black spots in the form of a square. In Chrysomela the equivalent 
spots are six in number, the additional pair being on the first ab- 
dominal segment ; and they diminish in size from before backwards. 
The larva of Gastrophysa is tubcrculate, and agrees generally, 
especially in the points which I have italicised, with the description of 
the larva of Chr. ( Lina ) populi, as given by Westwood (Modern 
Classification, vol. i, p. 388) — “ This larva (fig. 48, 9, &c.) is of an 
* I have also found a larva of this type feeding on oat leaves. It was probably Chr. graminis 
but I did not succeed in rearing it.— J. A. O. 
