BOMBYCIDiE. ERIOGASTER. 45 



abdomen robust and elongate in the females; moderate, and rather abbreviated 

 in the males ; densely clothed in both sexes with short down, and the apex in 

 the female with a large wooUy mass : wings elongate, entire, subdiaphanous, 

 slightly reversed during repose: cilia short: legs short, femora and tibiae 

 densely clothed with wool. Larva gregarious, cylindric, pilose, semi-annulated: 

 pupa short, obtuse, not dentate at the apex, enclosed in a rigid ovate cocoon. 



From the preceding and following genera, which somewhat 

 resemble Eriogaster in the texture of their wings, this may be 

 known by the stoutness and woolliness of their bodies, especially 

 of the females, and the brevity of the cilia : the males are further 

 distinguished from those of Poecilocampa by the more slender and 

 acuminated antennse, and from Cnethocampa by their comparatively 

 greater length and straightness ; and the females from those of the 

 former genus by the downy mass at the apex of the abdomen, and 

 from those of the latter by the superior bulk of their body and 

 tenuity of their antennse. Larvae gregarious, inhabiting a general 

 nest, which they enlarge from time to time, leaving it during the 

 night in search of food, but returning before morning, and finally 

 quitting it when they are about to undergo their change, which 

 they effect on the surface of the ground, in an oval rigid cocoon : 

 eggs deposited in an irregular mass on slender branches, and 

 covered by a cinereous down. 



Sp. 1. Lanestris. Alis subferrugineis, strigd alba, anticis puncto basique albis. 



(Exp. alar. $ 1 unc. 2 — 4 lin. : $ 1 unc. 6 — 10 lin.) 

 Ph. Bo. Lanestris. Linne. — Bon. vi. pi 310. ?. — Er. Lanestris. Steph. Catal. 



No. 5994. 



Antennae brownish-yeUow : thorax brown or griseous : abdomen fuscous at the 

 base, the apex paler : the anterior wings subferruginous, with a large spot at 

 the base (with a dark cloud in the centre in the male), and another on the 

 disc, and an obsoletely denticulated incurved striga behind the middle white : 

 the hinder margin rather ashy : ciha griseous, interrupted by whitish : posterior 

 wings, cinerascent in the male, griseous in the female, with an obsolete central 

 striga. Female larger, with the downy mass at the apex of the abdomen 

 cinereous. 



Both sexes vary considerably, the hinder margin of the anterior wings is some- 

 times without the ashy shade. 



Caterpillar black, or brownish, with two red patches on each segment between 

 abbreviated subannular white streaks, and a yellowish lateral line : it feeds upon 

 sloe, birch, lime, willow, fruit trees, whitethorn, &c. in June : pupa brown : 

 imago flies in February and March. 



Not uncommon, at times, in the neighbourhood of Darenth-wood, 

 and in other places near the metropolis. I have occasionally seen 



