194 LEPIDOPTERA. 



Lakva moderately active, plump, and tapering behind ; 

 colour pale green or pea-greeu, with the spots distinct and 

 black; head and legs shining black; dorsal plate green 

 or grey, with a white collar, and behind it some black dots ; 

 anal plate green or yellowish-green. 



End of May and in June on oak, rolling the leaves, or 

 turning them down, and sjiinning within ; in some seasons 

 perfectly stripping the trees of leaves. Occasionally also 

 upon maple, hornbeam, aspen and beech ; but this, I think, is 

 usually when the oaks are stripped. 



Pupa brown-black ; dull from minute frosting, but the eye- 

 covers glossy ; each segment of the abdomen furnished with 

 a ridge of small strong deflected spikes ; cremaster rounded 

 and blunt, furnished with hooked bristles. In a cocoon of 

 pure white silk in a folded leaf or in a chink of bark or any 

 suitable corner, often in numbers spun up between ivy leaves 

 on the tree trunks. 



This moth is to be found every year in our oak woods, but 

 in varying numbers, sometimes becoming more plentiful year 

 by year, till, as already remarked, every leaf is eaten from 

 the trees, and the larvfe in myriads descend to the ground, 

 try to satisfy their hunger upon all manner of bushes, and 

 either die of starvation or spin up when hardly full fed, 

 and produce poor and weak imagines. Enough, however, 

 reach perfection to cover the ground with their multitudes, 

 or so fill the air with their numbers that nothing else can 

 well be perceived. Plentiful where there are oaks through- 

 out the British Isles, and abundant in Central and Southern 

 Europe, Finland, South Scandinavia, Corsica, and Asia 

 ilinor. 



3. H. icterana, Frocl. ; paleana. Huh. ; fiavaua, Huh. — 

 Expanse, male § inch (21 mm.), female § inch (15 mm.). 

 Smoky pale ochreous or pale yellow, the female smaller ; 

 hind wings smoky brown. Antennae brown ; palpi and 



