Page:Life-histories of Indian insects - Microlepidoptera - T. Bainbrigge Fletcher.djvu/55

 18 LIFE-HISTORIES OF PTEROPHORIDJE to skin-points or rather rugosites of the skin." A sketch showing the arrange- ment of the tubercles is given in Spolia Zeylanica, "VI, t. E. f, 7. The pupa is " brown with a broad lighter ochreous-fiiscous central band ; very few hairs or projections. It was suspended anally to a flower-stalk within a slight atteni} t at a cocoon — a few silken threads spun around it to form a sjiacious but flimsy enclosure, in whi(h the pupa was fully visible. The cast larval skin remained at the anal extremity of the pupa "(-). DEUTEROCOPUS RITSEM^, WLSM. Deuterocopits ritsemce, Wlsm., Notes Leyden Mus., VT, 243 (1884)(i) ; Fletcher, T. E. S., 1910, 134-138, f. 6, t. 44 ff. 11, 12 (1910)(-). Deutei-oscojnts ruhrodactylus, Pag., Abh. Ges. Zool., XXIX, 241 (^). This species occurs in Ceylon, Assam, Tenasserim, and from Borneo to New Guinea(-). We have specimens from Kandy and Pollibetta. The early stages are as yet practically unknown. The moth has been bred by me in June 1908 at Galle from pupa?," found suspended anally from the upper surface of leaves of Leea sambiicina, which is evidently the food- plant. The different n^ethod of suspension, as compared with the pupa of D. planeto, is noteworthy. On the san.e bnsh I found a larva feeding inside an unopened flower-bud ; it appeared to be very similar to that of planeta but wanted the terminal red sufi'usion ; unfortunately I failed to rear if. '^). PLATYPTILIA CITROPLEURA, MEYrJ t-io f -f:^ "^ l^<) Platijptilia citropleum, Meyr., T. E. S., 1907, 482 (1908)(') ; Fletchei, 8pol. Zeylan., VI, 15 (1909)(-) ; Meyrick, Entom. Mitteil., Suppl. No. Ill, p. 46 (Jan. 1914)C'). This species has been recorded from Maskeliya (Ceylon)('), the Khasis(') and Formosa(''). I found it not uncomm.only in the larval stage at Maskeliya in March 1909 but have never seen any specimens in the Khasi Hills. The larva feeds inside the seed-capsules of Begonia sj^., both cultivated and wild varieties. A full-grown larva found at Maskeliya on 7th March 1909 was described as 6 mm. long, stoutly built, thickest about mesothorax and gradually tapering posteriorly ; head pale yellow without any markings except the black ocelli and ferruginous jaws ; other segments creamy-yellow with a narrow pale ferruginous median line ill-defined anteriorly ; a broader pale ferruginous lateral line passes just above the spiracles, which are high- placed ; each segment divided transversely by a vertical constriction of the skin-surface into two sub-segments of which the anterior is one-and-a-half to twice as large as the posterior ; legs and prolegs transparent pale jellow,