Page:Life-histories of Indian insects - Microlepidoptera - T. Bainbrigge Fletcher.djvu/54

 T. BAINBRIGGE FLETCHER 17 of the larva. Movements slow and deliberate, spinning a thread as it moves along and when it drops. Under the microscope the skin is seen to be covered with minute skin-points as if shagreened "(^). " The pupa is attached to a flower, flower -.stalk or stem of the foodplant, or more rarely to a leaf of the same, and is usually enclosed in a very flimsy cocoon composed of a few silken threads. It is possible, however, that these threads are merely fortuitous, having been spun by the larva during its f^earch for a suitable pupation-place or whilst preparing its cremastral pad. The pupa is about 6 mm. long, stout, smooth, rounded and blunt at the capital extremity. Its usual colour is a pale apple-green, marked with dark or pinkish- red on the dorsal surface, the markings usually consisting of (1) a narrow median thoracic stripe broadening posteriorly into a transverse bar extending obliquely downwards to about the edge of the wing-covers, and (2) a series of submedian patches on the second to fifth abdominal segm-ents forming a more or less interrupted longitudinal stripe. Some pupse, however, which had pupated in my boxes, were wholly of a dark-grey colour. The m^oth emerges in the early morning "(-). DEUTEROCOPUS PLANETA, MEYR. Deuterocopus planeta, Meyr., T. E. S., 1907, 473-474 (1908)(i) ; Fletcher, T. E. S., 1910, 131-134, f . 5, t. 44 f . 10, t. 45 f . 2 (1910)(-). Deiiterocopus ruhrodactylus {nee Pag.), Fletcher, Spolia Zeylan., VI, 20, t. E f. 7 {1909)(3). This species ranges from Ceylon, Khasi Hills and Burma to Portuguese Timor, Tenimber and New Guinea(-). We have it from the Bababudin Hills and PoUibetta (South Coorg). " The egg is about 0'44 mm. long by about 0*20 mm. broad ; in shape it is- ovo-cylindrical, the ends rounded and subequal, the micropylar area distinctly depressed ; the surface is very smooth and shining, of a very pale orange colour, suf!used with red at either pole "(2). The larva feeds on the flowers of Leea sambucina and is "pale green without any markings except red suffusion at either extremity. The skin is roughened into minute knobs (like shark skin) everywhere, but especially on the ventral region. A distinct subsegment is formed on the posterior ventral region of abdominal segments. The hairs, except (i), are very short and inconspicuous ; (i) is short, less than breadth of segment. The hairs are transparent whitish (glassy) and the tubercles very indistinct. The hairs are longest on thoracic and anal regions. The legs are extren eJy short and inconspicuous. There are no secondary hairs, these seeming to be reduced