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LYCAENIDAE 
resting between them ; it then enters into complete torpidity 
and remains motionless until the beginning of the following 
May, when it pupates. 
Egg Laying and Egg. When this butterfly is depositing, 
she flies from one flower-head of the Kidney Vetch to another, 
invariably selecting the freshest expanding flowers and avoiding 
those at all withered. Upon alighting, she crawls over the 
clustered calyces, curving her abdomen, and lays a single 
egg in the woolly covering of the calyx, and often between 
them. I have never seen more than one egg laid by the 
same female on any one flower-head. But very frequently 
two or three eggs may be found on the same cluster of flowers, 
without doubt always laid by different individuals. 
The egg is only 0*40 mm. in diameter and 0*20 mm. high. 
In shape it resembles the egg of Lysandra bcllargus , and that 
of Maculinea avion in structural pattern. The colour is pale 
blue-green with white reticulations. The egg stage lasts from 
five to seven days, according to temperature. 
Larva. Very soon after hatching from the egg, the young 
larva bores its way through the calyx to feed on the tender 
green legume within. After the second moult, when only 
4 or 5 mm. long, the larvae savagely attack and devour each 
other. When fully grown after the third moult, the larva 
measures 9*50 mm. long. The black shining head is very small 
and set on a long retractile neck, which is protruded while 
crawling and withdrawn and hidden under the first segment 
when resting. The segments are humped dorsally, the sides 
arc flat and there is a dilated lateral ridge ; it has no dorsal 
furrow. On the tenth segment is a transverse honey-gland 
(vide M. avion). The ground colour is variable, but usually 
it is pale ochreous. Some are tinged with green and others 
with pale primrose-yellow. All are somewhat marked with 
pinkish along the back and have oblique bands on the sides, 
also a lateral white stripe edged on either side with pink ; 
this is plainest in the greenest forms. When hibernating 
amongst the Anthyllis flowers, the larvae exactly match the 
colouring of the dead calyces, becoming practically invisible, 
and are in every way the most perfect examples of protective 
resemblance. The larval stage occupies about eleven months. 
Pupa. The pupa is 8 mm. in length ; the head and thorax 
