THE TIGEE MOTHS. 437 



species being uncommon on the Continent. Supposing thf 

 Durchaser to be fastidious as to his collection being purelj 

 British, he may obtain a warranty with any individual speci 

 men he is selecting, by paying twenty or thirty shillings addi 

 tional. The specimen then becomes " British," just as a wealthj 

 tradesman becomes an esquire by paying for armorial bearingt 

 which some ingenious manufacturer professes to find in Herald's: 

 College. I prefer dispensing with warranty, as too expensive 

 a luxury.' 



A really genuine British specimen is now before me. It 

 was caught by a young lady close to my house at Belvedere, 

 Kent, on Sept. 11, 1871, and brought to me while the wings 

 were still flexible. 



There are only three British species of this beautiful family. 

 Two have been described, and the third is the handsomest of 

 them all. This is the Crimson Tiger (Calllmorpha Dominula\ 

 which, fortunately for entomologists, is not very scarce, though 

 it is decidedly local. The upper wings are dark olive-brown, 

 with a gloss of the richest and deepest green, and on them are 

 a number of bold white spots, variable in number and size, 

 but always tending to orange towards the middle of the wing. 

 Th<* lower wings are crimson, with several black patches. 



The caterpillar of this lovely Moth is blue-black, with a 

 rather broad yellow stripe down the middle of the back, and a 

 narrow stripe on either side. It feeds on the common Hound's- 

 tongue [GynoglossuTYi officinale), which grows among valleys 

 and on road-sides. Wherever this plant, with its downy, dark- 

 green leaves and crimson flower, grows in plenty, there is sure 

 to be a favourable locality for the caterpillar of the Crimson 

 Tiger, if not for the Moth itself. 



Another family now comes before us — the Chelonidse, 

 popularly known as Tiger-Moths. They have the antennae 

 more or less deeply fringed in the male, and the caterpillar is 

 very hairy, coiling itself into a ring when alarmed. Before 

 it changes into the pupal state, it spins a very loose web 

 mixed profusely with its hairs. 



The best known of these insects is shown on Plate XV. 

 Fig. 1, and may be reckoned as the type of the family. It is 

 the Common Tiger-Moth (Ghelonia or Arctia caja), so called 



