THE LARGE COPPER 
263 
Egg and Egg Laying. The eggs are laid singly on the 
leaves of the great Water-dock. The egg is very small, being 
only slightly larger than that of the Small Copper. It is only 
0*65 mm. wide and 0^40 mm. high. It is shaped like a coronet, 
with a bold cellular pattern on the crown. The micropyle is 
sunken and surrounded by six or seven crescentic cells ; these 
are followed by a series of much larger cells, which diminish 
in size round the sides and disappear before reaching the base. 
The whole of the upper surface is finely granular, resembling 
rough, white oxidised silver with greyish-green shadows. The 
base is a transparent green, and is deeply embedded in gluten, 
which fixes it firmly to the leaf. Before hatching, the egg 
changes to an opaque creamy-white colour. It remains in 
the egg state sixteen days. 
Larva. The young larva emerges 
by eating a circular hole in the 
crown, but does not feed on the 
empty shell. Directly after emer¬ 
ging, it starts feeding on the 
cuticle of the under surface of the 
leaf and lies in the furrow eaten 
away, with the lateral fringe of 
hairs surrounding its body lying 
flat on the surface overlapping the 
edges of the furrow. After making 
a little channel, often not more than its own length, just to 
lie in, it moves to another spot and eats away another channel, 
and so on to another. After feeding for a few days in this 
way, several little windows of various lengths are, therefore, 
cut into the leaf, but the foliage is not perforated, as a thin 
membrane of the upper surface is left. After the second 
moult, the larva perforates the leaves, making large holes all 
over them, and when moulting it usually lies alongside the 
midrib. It is sluggish in movement, crawling with a slow, 
gliding, slug-like motion, but eats voraciously and grows 
rapidly. After the third moult, when fully grown the 
larva measures from 19 mm. to 21 mm. in length. The 
dorsal surface is in a complete curve from one end to 
the other; the sides slope to a lateral ridge ; the ventral 
surface is much flattened, overlapping the legs and claspers; 
[Male 
1842. 
The Large Copper. 
ab. Bred by Doubleday, 
Now in the Tring coll.) 
