BIRCH MOCHA. 1 39 



Dingy Mocha {Ephyra orbicnlaria). 



The wings are greyish, thickly striped with darker grey ; the 

 markings similar to those of the next species, but the rings are 

 nearly always reddish or purplish, and the central line is wavy. 

 (Plate 53, Figs. 4 and 5.) 



The ^"g^ (which, together with the caterpillar and chrysalis, 

 is figured on Plate 51) is at first bone-coloured ; later, pink dots 

 and patches appear. 



The caterpillar is bright green with three lines along the 

 back, the central one edged on each side with dark green and 

 the others wavy; the sides are blotched with pink or pale 

 purple, or sometimes whitish and unmarked ; head slightly 

 notched on the crown, pale brown, marked with darker; fore 

 legs tipped with pink. (Porritt, abridged.) In another form 

 of the green coloration, the sides are pinkish with dark-brown 

 oblique stripes ; in a third the general colour is pale brown. 

 The first brood of caterpillars feeds in June on sallow and alder, 

 and a second in August and September. 



The moth appears in May and June, and again in July and 

 August ; sometimes a third brood has been reared in captivity. 

 It is less frequently met with than the other species oi Ephyra, 

 even in its most favourite haunts, such as the New Forest, in 

 Hampshire. Other localities for it are Abbots Wood, St. 

 Leonards and Tilgate Forests, and elsewhere in Sussex ; Red- 

 stone, Haslemere, and the Croydon districts, in Surrey; and in 

 some Kentish woods. It has also been taken rarely in Dorset, 

 Devon (Tiverton), S. Wales, and Suftblk (Lowestoft). 



^' A^^ ti 'Birch Mocha. (Ep/iy?-a pen^u/aria), 



M The general colour of this species (Plate 53, Figs, i, 2) is 

 whitish, more or less powdered or suff'used with grey ; all the 



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