368 
HESPERIIDAE 
Grass (Phleum pratense), Couch Grass (Triticum repens) and 
the Heath False Brome Grass (Brachypodium pinnatum). 
The egg is oval, the greatest diameter being o - 8o mm., and 
is much flattened ; the central area is slightly sunken. The 
whole surface is covered with fine reticulations of a network 
pattern. The colour when fully mature is straw-yellow. 
When about twenty days old, it is an opaque milk-white 
and the larva is plainly visible through the shell; the body 
is coiled round the egg, the tail and head meeting at the end. 
In this condition the larva remains about eight months and 
then hatches in April. 
Larva. The young larva eats away 
the end of the egg and emerges. When 
fully grown, after the fourth moult, it 
is 22 mm. long, rather slender and 
tapering. The anal segment terminates 
in a projecting and compressed anal 
flap. The head is oblong, pearly-green 
in colour, each lobe being banded with 
whitish and light brown eye spots; 
the mouth parts are black. The body 
is green, with darker green medio and 
sub-dorsal stripes bordered with pale 
yellowish-green stripes ; there is also a 
conspicuous white lateral band. The 
the whole surface is freckled with darker 
per. green, which breaks up the pale stripes 
into a checkered pattern. On the 
ventral surface at the divisions of the ninth and the tenth, 
and the tenth and the eleventh segments is a white, waxy 
layer. The entire surface is densely covered with fine, short, 
white bristles. The larva is provided with an anal comb for 
the ejectment of its excreta. 
The larva spins a loose network of silk round the grass 
blades and a layer along the central one to rest upon, attaching 
itself by the claspers and a cincture round the body. It 
rests head upwards for three days and then pupates. The 
spun-up grasses form a cocoon. The larval stage occupies 
about sixty days. The larva is solitary. 
Pupa. The pupa is rather slender and tapers gradually to 
' V '->v_ - 
m 
fik 
The head process of 
pupa of the Essex Skipj 
