56 
inconspicuous. Colour of body light brown, head and anal extremity 
somewhat yellower brown ; no markings discoverable. I found they 
would eat indiscriminately any species of Epilobium which was offered 
them hiruntum, E. parvifioruw, etc.), and after my return to 
London a garden Fuchsia seemed to satisfy them equally well. Their 
growth was rapid, the duration of the four stadia being respectively 
6, 4, 4 and 7 days, or thereabouts, but 4 days out of the last 7 
are accounted for as the period which elapses between spinning up and 
pupating. 
In the second instar the larva is yellow-green, with a reddish 
dorsal line on the thorax and again on the 7th to 10th abdominal; in 
the third instar, it becomes somewhat more variable, the dorsal line 
sometimes continues, and often almost black anteriorly and 
posteriorly, the ground colour at the same time varying towards dark 
blue-green, and even (in one or two individuals) towards flesh-colour; 
there is a rather conspicuous whitish medio-ventral line. In both 
these stadia the larva is extremely thin in proportion to the length. 
In the last stage, it seems slightly less elongated proportionally, 
but is still a very slender larva. The segmented form is not quite 
perfectly cylindrical, the elongate abdominal segments being slightly, 
though not conspicuously, of what Mr. Bacot describes as the “ taper- 
form.” the intersegmental spaces yellowish. Head flattened, face 
with a large lunular, or almost horse-shoe-shaped black mark, the 
enclosed space green excepting black sutural lines; mouth-parts 
pinkish. Metathoracic legs much blackened, mesothoracic somewhat 
so. Body showing the same colour-variation as in 3rd instar, the 
pink (or blackish) medio-dorsal line generally interrupted. It becomes 
darker and thicker at the anal end, and throws out an equally dark and 
thick branch which runs obliquely along the anal clasper, where it is 
margined anteriorly with white; these darkened anal markings bear 
some minute white spots which give this portion of the larva a rather 
ornamental appearance ; anterior claspers dull blackish on outer side. 
It struck me that the larva was not altogether remote from that of 
Lymis prunata , though decidedly not congeneric therewith. 
The pupa, which is enclosed in a flimsy web among leaves on the 
ground, is very variegated in appearance, and perhaps shows more 
decided affinity with the Lygrids than either ova or larva. As I do not 
feel competent to describe it in a way that would be of any scientific 
value, although I have some rough notes at home for my own 
use, I think I must bring this communication to an abrupt con¬ 
clusion, merely remarking that I am still far from having completed 
my studies of this interesting group of moths, and that I shall hope 
ere long to have an opporiumty of studying some of ihe life-histories 
of which I am still almost entirely ignorant, and of forming some 
more definite views on their affinities. 
