140 LEPIDOPTERA. 



Posterior dorsal segments canary-yellow, with a central pale 

 brown line. On every dorsal segment two yellow spots. 

 On each side two yellow waved lines, enclosing a brown line. 

 Feeds in September and throughout October, on the flowers 

 of the golden rod (Solidago virgaurea). In confinement, 

 it will eat various species of Michaelmas daisy. It has also, 

 I believe, been beaten from the flowei'S of rag-wort, but I 

 have not myself met with it on anything but SuUdago 

 virgaurea. The pupa, which is enclosed in an eai-then 

 cocoon, is large and thick, and has the thorax and abdomen 

 yellow, the latter deeply suffused with blood-red. Wing- 

 cases more or less tinged with green. The perfect insect 

 appears from the middle of June to the end of July. 



Kupitliecia Abyynthiata. It would be impossible to give 

 an accurate description of the almost endless varieties of this 

 most variable larva ; they run so closely into each other that 

 it would be an almost herculean task to separate them. 

 The ground-colour is either yellowish-green, deep rose colour, 

 or dirty reddish-brown, with a series of reddish lozenge- 

 shaped spots down the centre of the back, generally becoming 

 faint or confluent towards the head and tail. In the green 

 variety these spots are often entirely wanting ; on each side 

 a number of narrow slanting yellovr' stripes, forming a sort 

 of border to the dorsal spots. Spiracnlar line waved, yel- 

 low. Body wrinkled, thickly studded with minute white tu- 

 bercles, and somewhat more sparingly with short white hairs. 

 Segmental divisions yellow. Thick and stumpy, tapering 

 but little. Feeds from the end of August to the beginning 

 of November, upon the flowers of common yellow and 

 hoary-leaved rag-wort [Senecio jacoh(Ba and S. erucifoUus), 

 the hemp agrimony {^Eujmtorium cannahi7ium), the mug- 

 wort {^Artemisia vulgaris), yarrow {Achillea, millefolium), 

 golden rod {Solidago virgaurea), &c. The pupa, which is 



