THE GENUS MACROGLOSSA, OCHSENHEIMER.
The adult larvæ of five species are known, and to these I can now add a sixth. In Gray the genus contains twenty-six species.[105] I cannot find any figures or descriptions of the young stages of these caterpillars, and I have myself only observed the complete ontogeny of one species.
By placing a captured female M. Stellatarum in a capacious breeding-cage, in the open air, I was enabled to procure eggs. The moth hovered about over the flowers, and laid its small, grass-green, spherical eggs (partly when on the wing), singly, on the leaves, buds, and stalks of Galium Mollugo. Altogether 130 were obtained in three days.[106]
First Stage.
After about eight days the caterpillars emerge. They are only two millimeters in length, and are at first yellowish, but soon become green, set with small single bristles, and they possess a short greenish caudal horn, which afterwards becomes black. The head is greenish-yellow. The young larvæ are entirely destitute of marking. ([Pl. III]., Fig. 1).
Second Stage.
The first moult takes place after four days, the caterpillar now acquiring the marking which it essentially retains to pupation.
Fine white subdorsal and spiracular lines appear, and at the same time a dark green dorsal line, which, however, does not arise from the deposition of pigment, as is generally the case, but from a division in the folds of the fatty tissue along this position. (Fig. 2, [Pl. III].)