PLUMB-MOTHS OF CEYLON* 
13 
are a little longer than the diameter of the segments on which they 
arise. The legs are yellowish-green, extremities of claws reddish. 
Prolegs very transparent pale green, hooks reddish. Spiracles very 
inconspicuous. Secondary hairs short, bl^ck. (Plate E, figure 4.) 
Parasites .—Of some fifty or sixty larvae collected, about 75 per 
cent, were found to be attacked by a small black ichneumonid fly. 
Pupa .—The pupa is suspended freely by the tail from an empty 
flower-sheath of the food plant. It is rather short, the appendage 
sheaths very long and well separated. Colour a pale flesh-pink, 
mottled longitudinally with brown ; head and wing-sheaths pale 
greenish, the latter with longitudinal brown shading. Dorsal 
prominences small, distinct, sub equal, directed forward, except the 
first, which is extremely large, directed backwards, blunt, but 
tipped anteriorly with a sharp spine whose point is bent forward. 
This large prominence is sharply outlined by a deep brown shading 
which reaches obliquely anteriorly half way across the wing-cover. 
A second brown shade, parallel to the first but less intense and 
narrower, occurs on the 6th segment, but barely reaches on to the 
wing-sheath. 
Imago .—The moth emerges from the pupa after about a week. 
Platyptilia pusillidactyla, Wile. 
(Plate A., figure 2.) 
Pusillidactyla. —Wlk., Cat. XXX., 933; Wlsm., P. Z. S., 1891, 
495 ; 1. c., 1897, 57; Meyr., T. E. S., 1907, 483. 
Tecnidion .—Zeller, Hor. Soc. Ent. Ross., XIII., 468 (1877). 
Hemimetra .—Meyr., T. E. S., 1886, 18 ; B. J., XVII., 135. 
Distribution .—Anuradhapura, Kurunegala, Kegalla, Galle, Weli- 
gama, Trincomalee, Puttalam, Colombo, Matale, Maturata, Kandy, 
Peradeniya, Maskeliya, Diyatalawa, Bandarawela, Passara, Madul- 
sima, Badulla, Haldummulla. 
Abundant throughout Ceylon in every district that has been 
invaded by Lantana. 
Early Stages. — Ovum. —The egg is about * 4 mm. long by about • 22 
mm. broad, and is of a very pale greenish-yellow colour (almost 
colourless) ; one end seems larger than the other and this larger 
end is studded with little prominences, especially noticeable in the 
micropylar area. 
Oviposition. —On the evening of January 4, 1908, I watched a 
female ovipositing on Lantana at Galle. She flew about slowly and 
pitched on a terminal shoot enclosing a small green unexpanded 
flower bud. This she seemed to examine by bending down her head, 
and antennae and then, apparently satisfied, she bent her abdomen 
downwards and right forward (until the ovipositor must have 
extended at least as far forward as her head) and deposited a single, 
small, oval, greenish-white ovum. She then flew to another bud 
