58 ■ LEPIDOPTERA. 



yellow, clouded all over with purple, dusted with dark purple- 

 brown ; and having the central spot and a broad transverse 

 stripe, prcccdinfi it, of the same colour. 



A^ariable in the ground colour, from rich fulvous to straw- 

 colour, and very so in the degree of purple spotting or dusting, 

 which sometimes is almost absent ; also in the distinctness 

 of the transverse lines, which in pale specimens are, the first 

 more particularly, sometimes almost obliterated. 



On the wing in August, September, and even the beginning 

 of October. 



Larva 2i inches long, slender in proportion, thickest 

 behind and tapering slightly smaller to the head ; on the 

 back of the seventh segment is a transverse prominence, and 

 on the eleventh another, smaller ; the third pair of legs is 

 long and strongly hooked, and the two pairs of prolegs robust, 

 long, and strongly stem-clasping ; above these, on the back of 

 the thirteenth segment, are two raised points ; the incisions 

 of the segments are marked by wrinkles and small humps ; 

 general colour dark brown or umbreous, irregularly mottled 

 and streaked with rather redder-brown, so that the resem- 

 blance to a bit of brown stick is most extraordinary, the first 

 and second pairs of legs being drawn close to the head, as it 

 poises itself at rest, while the third pair sticks out straight 

 like a short thorn. Head much flattened, reddish-brown ; 

 the mouth darker ; antennal papillas conspicuous, pointing 

 forward ; the redder colour lies in longitudinal stripes upon 

 the browner colouring of the anterior segments, and in much 

 more broken-up streaks on the segmental divisions : the hind- 

 most segments are the roughest and the darkest in colour ; 

 undersurface quite as rounded as the rest of the body and of 

 the same colour and appearance. (From larvae furnished by 

 Mr. G. T. Porritt.) 



May to August on birch, sallow, alder, hawthorn, black- 

 thorn, maple, and plum, and probably other trees. Mr. 

 Sydney Webb found it at Dover spun up between leaves of 



