352 
HESPERIIDAE 
The dorsal spine 
of the larva of the 
Dingy Skipper. 
Larva. The little larva makes its exit by 
eating away the crown of the egg, but does not 
eat more of the shell after emerging. It spins 
two or three leaflets of Lotus together with 
strands of silk and lives between them, feeding 
on the cuticle. When fully grown after the 
fourth moult, the larva measures 17*50 mm. 
in length. The purplish-black head is very 
large in proportion to the small first segment 
and the surface is very roughly granulated 
and densely sprinkled with line white hairs. 
The body is very attenuated at both ends. 
The surface is finely granular and studded 
with small white spines with black discal bases, each encircled 
with white ; the body is also sprinkled with minute lenticles. 
The whole colouring is green tinged with ochreous. The anal 
comb (vide 0. venata) is fan-shaped and consists of about 
twenty-four tines, the central ones being longest. 
The larva becomes fully grown about the middle of August. 
It then spins several Lotus leaflets together with a rough 
network of silk, of a cocoon-like structure, forming its hiber- 
naculum in which it hibernates for nine months and pupates 
at about the end of April or early in May. 
The larval stage lasts between ten and eleven months. The 
larva is solitary. 
Pupa. The pupa is of rather slender proportions and 
measures 14 mm. in length. The head is rounded ; the thorax 
is rather swollen and forms a continuous slightly-curved 
dorsal line along the abdomen 
to the last segment. Ventrally 
the thorax is slightly concave, 
and the wings and abdomen form 
a convex outline ; the cremaster 
forms a decurved point. 
The colouring of the head and 
thorax is olive T green marbled 
with ochreous and rufous-brown ; 
the wings are ochreous-green 
The thoracic spiracle of the Dingy and semi-transparent ; the abdo- 
Skipper (highly magnified). men is chestnut, densely freckled 
