1867.J 115 
Discovery and description of the larva of Lithostegeniveata. — Forom- knowledge 
of the early stages of this species we have to thank Mr. T. Brown, of Cambridge, 
who has found the larvaj feeding on Sisymhrium sophia, in tlie locality where he 
had been accustomed to take the moth. 
The larvae, however, which I have had this summer, M'hcther bred or captured, 
throve equally well on Erysimum clieiranthnides, seeds of which had beeu seut me 
in mistake for those of S- sophia. 
Mr. Brown sent me eggs on June 18th and 25th, and the larvae appeared soon 
after, and fed up in about a month, all of them having gone to earth by August 1st. 
On August 3rd, Mr. Brown sent mc some larvae which he had just captured 
in their locality, and some of these continued feeding for nearly a fortnight longer. 
The larva, when full-grown, is nearly an inch long, rather slender, flattened 
beneath, of uniform bulk throughout ; the head full large, and rounded. 
The colour is very variable ; the larvae reared on Erysimum cheiranthoides were 
mostly paler than the captured ones sent me by Mr. Brown, and as these did not 
vary much among themselves, we have taken their colouring and markings to form 
Var. 1. Ground-colour dull olive-green all over, except the spiracular i-egion, which 
is pale yellow ; very fine dorsal Une of darker tint of the ground-colour, sometimes 
there is a similar line on either side of it, and sometimes again these appear only 
as a pair of olive-brown or purplish wedge-shaped dashes just before each seg- 
mental fold : siib-dorsal line greenish-grey with darker edgings ; the spiracles 
black, and just above and behind them, in the yellow spiracular stripe, are suffused 
blotches of the colour of the dorsal wedges. 
Var. 2. Ground-colour of a fresher, more yellowish-green, dorsal reg-ion full 
green ; spiracular region yellowish, and the blotches in it of a darker purplish tint 
than in No. 1, and more clearly defined. 
Var. 3. Ground-colour greenish-white ; thi-ee very fine purplish-brown or 
blackish lines down the back, of which the central one becomes wider and darker 
just before each segmental fold, and the other two across the fold ; sometimes these 
lines are interrupted, appearing only in the thickened pai'ts ; sometimes again they 
are all united by a transverse band just before the segmental fold : the sub-dorsal line 
paler than the ground, but edged below with the dark colour ; the spiraculai- region 
not differing from the rest of the ground-colour, with its wedge-shaped blotches, 
not only above the spiracles, but also with similar ones below them ; in some speci- 
mens the spiracular stripe being itself interrupted by these pairs of upper and 
under blotches becoming partially united ; the anal flap and the anal pair of legs 
dark blackish -green, or purplish-brown. 
This last variety caught the eye, when upon its food, readily enough, but the 
other two were hard to distinguish from the seed-pods of the mustard -jalants. — 
J. 'Hellins, Exeter, September 16th, 1867. 
Note on the lirvo, of Agrophila sulphuralis. — Hiibner's figures of this species 
leave me little thut is new to say about it ; still I feel much indebted to Mr. 
Brown for enabling me to rear a larva which Mr. Buckler has figured. 
Unluckily — although the moth had laid several eggs — they all perished in the 
Post-oflice save one, and the single laiwa did not live to become a pupa, having 
been hatched on Juno 25th, and dying on August 15th. 
