202 LEPIDOPTERA. 



loops lying inward ; close to one of these, or often merged 

 in it, is a blackish dot or streak at the end of the discal cell, 

 and very frequently a slender bluish line extends from this 

 dot to the middle of the costa. Outside the second line is a 

 row of blue-black dashes or dots before the hind margin and 

 placed on the nervures ; cilia yellowish red. Hind wings 

 broad, rather angulated at the apex, rounded behind, thin 

 and delicate ; very pale vermilion, verging towards whitish at 

 the base ; cilia yellowish-red. Female similar, hardly stouter, 

 but the fore wings are without the costal fold, and the abdo- 

 men is devoid of the blackish scales. Underside similar in 

 colour to the upper, except that the base of the costa of the 

 fore wings is more broadly blackish ; the centre of the fore 

 wings is occupied by a large blackish cloud in which the loops 

 of the second line are extended and merged, and in the male 

 the undersurface of the abdomen is covered with a thick 

 mass of smoky-black scales ; in the female it is pale reddish ; 

 legs reddish with the first pair of tarsi blue-black. In Mr. 

 Sydney Webb's collection is a specimen entirely pale yellow, 

 which was taken in the New Forest ; in that of the late Mr. 

 Bond another, and intermediate forms. Otherwise it varies 

 but little, except in the degree of distinctness of the first 

 transverse line. 



On the wing in July. 



Larva half an inch long, stout, uniform in thickness, skin 

 shining, densely covered with plumed hairs, except segments 

 two and thirteen which have only short simple hairs, while 

 in each other body-segment they are wonderfully plumose 

 and verticillate, with plain tufts along the sides and above 

 the feet. Head brown, the lobes outlined with black ; body 

 dark drab, the hairs being of a blackish mouse-colour, or a 

 little paler behind the middle. (A very curious larva, seeming 

 to carry minute hearse-plumes.) When young very dingy, 

 fogg}^-looking, with a quantity of loose hairs on the back. 

 (Hellins.) 



August to May. Feeding throughout the winter, except in 



