Page:Life-histories of Indian insects - Microlepidoptera - T. Bainbrigge Fletcher.djvu/23

 t. BAINiBRIGGE FLETCHER " petioles had been eaten away by the larva. This pupa was of a greenish-yellow- brown colour, just the tint of the faded sundew leaves, and it looked rather like a grass seed which had fallen on to the plant and stuck to the gum ; it may be add-ed that ripe grass seeds are often so found. " In confinement the larva exhibits a certain preference for suspension from the flower-stalk of its foodplant, whose colour is of a reddish green. Even when the stem is growing at an angle, its double set of cremastral hooks enables the pupa to keep its ventral surface closely appressed to the lower side of the stem, so that it is not suspended freely. It seems possible that this pupa possesses a certain amount of colour adaptability, those pupa3 attached to the reddish flower-stems having usually an increased red suffusion in comparison with those attached to glass or white paper. " When on an approxim_ately horizontal surface, the pupa is usually found dorsum uppermost ; otherwise it invariably suspends itself head down- wards and with the ventral surface appressed to its support. " In the case of a pupa in a horizontal position the cast larval skin is sometimes seen lying near it, but quite free and shrivelled up. The suspended pupa always gets rid of the larval skin entirely. This habit is the exact opposite of that found in Trichoptilus oxydactylus [BucUeria defectalis], whose discarded larval skin is not shrivelled up, but is stretched out along the stem just above the pupa. "When first formed the pupa is of a light apple-gieen colour, the ^ing- covers and appendages of a darker green, and a narrow darker m.edio-dorsal stripe. On either side of this last is a series of eight red tubercles, each bearing two black spines, both pointing longitudinally in opposite directions ; on about the eighth somite, however, the foremost of these two spines becom.es obsolescent and quite disappears before the anal extremity is reached. The cremaster consists of two portions approximately equal to one another, one in the centre of the ventral surface of the twelfth somite, the other at the anal extremity. " In some cases the newly-formed pupa is wholly suliused with a delicate pink flush, which almost becomes a dull red in some specimens. " After a couple of days the bright green begins to fade and ultimately becomes a dull uniform pale yellowish-brown, by which time the eyes and antennae are clearly marked in black. " The pupa is formed about thirty hours after the larva has suspended itself, and the moth emerges after about nine or ten days in the pupal state. "The moth always emerges in the morning, usually at ab^u*-- 8a.m"(1)