74 LEPWOPTERA. 



on the dorsal margin, where it is clothed with long yellowish 

 scales. When freshly emerged from the pupa the wings are 

 thinly covered with silvery-grey scales, having a purplish 

 iridescence. These are shaken off at the first movement. 

 Under side of all the wings brilliantly iridescent, with 

 purple reflections ; basal portion — of the hind wings espe- 

 cially — bright yellow ; nervures yellow ; margins dull reddish- 

 grey. Face and under-part of the thorax whitish-yellow, of 

 the abdomen yellowish mixed with black. 



Sexes similar, and not variable. 



On the wing in the latter part of May and in June. 



Larva If inch in length. Cylindrical, but tapering a little 

 to the head, which is small and rounded; horn on the twelfth 

 segment slender, and sharply pointed, bent obliquely back, 

 Head green. Body rather full green ; each segment with a 

 few whitish dots ; subdorsal line pale green, and having 

 immediately above it, from the fifth to the twelfth segments, 

 a row of elongated claret-red spots or short lines ; a similar, 

 but larger, row of spots or streaks of claret colour lies 

 along the spiracular region of the same segment and is con- 

 tinued to the thirteenth. Horn green at the base, dark red 

 to the apex ; legs, pro-legs, and sometimes the under surface, 

 claret-red. 



July and August on Scabiosa siiccisa, and probably 

 S. arvensis ; biting holes in the leaves, and resting on their 

 undersides. 



Pupa dark brown, in a slight loose cocoon, among rubbish 

 in some sheltered nook on or just under the surface of the 

 ground. In the pupa state through the winter. 



This, the Narrow-bordered Bee-hawkmoth, is like the 

 preceding, a day-flying species, extremely swift and sudden 

 in its motions, appearing, in a moment, poised on quivering 

 wings (something like a great bee) at a flower, and trying 

 blossom after blossom, but if disturbed disappearing like a 

 flash. It loves to extract the honey' from blossoms of Zottis 



