ttiE STAR-WORT. 39 



Between sixty and seventy years ago, the late Mr. Samuel 

 Stevens obtained the caterpillars on mullein growing in a chalk 

 pit at Arundel in Sussex, and this seems to be the earliest notice 

 of the species occurring in Britain. It is now known also to 

 inhabit Hampshire, Surrey, and Oxfordshire ; has been reported 

 from Norfolk, Suffolk, and Gloucestershire. 



The Star- wort {Cucullia asteris). 



The silvery-grey fore wings of this moth (Plate 15, Fig. 6) are 

 broadly suffused with reddish brown along the front margin, and 

 more narrowly with purplish brown inclining to blackish along 

 the inner margin ; the latter is separated from a purplish brown 

 blotch at the outer angle by a whitish edged black curved 

 mark. 



The caterpillar (figured on Plate 18, Fig. 3, from a photo by 

 Mr. Main) is green with a black-edged yellow stripe along the 

 back, and another along the white spiracles ; between these 

 stripes are two pale greenish lines ; head, green, sprinkled 

 with blackish. In another form the body is suffused with 

 reddish, inclining to purplish on the back ; yellow markings 

 pretty much as in the green form. It feeds chiefly on golden- 

 rod {Solidago virgaurea) and sea star-wort {Aster tripolium)^ 

 showing a decided preference for the flowers, but will eat the 

 foliage of the plants mentioned. In confinement it can be 

 reared on garden asters and Michaelmas daisy. It may be 

 obtained on its food plants from July well into September. 



The moth emerges in June and July as a rule, sometimes in 

 early August, but has been known to come from the chrysalis 

 during September up to the 23rd of that month. The species 

 is found often abundantly in the caterpillar state in the sea- 

 board counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Sussex, Hants, 

 and Dorset. In Surrey it has occurred at Haslemere, and in 



