CISTUS FORESTER. 343 



The caterpillar (Plate 145, Fig. 5) is whitish, inclining to 

 green, yellow, or pinkish, on the back, and the sides are 

 pinkish brown ; the hairy warts are brown or pinkish brown, 

 and the small head is glossy black. It feeds on sorrel {Riimex 

 acetosd), and it attains full growth, after hibernation, about the 

 end of April. On leaving the egg-shell in the summer, the 

 young caterpillar bores into a leaf, and eats the tissue between 

 the upper and lower skins ; later on it attacks the foliage from 

 the underside, but leaves the upper skin intact ; or the process 

 may be reversed, and the under skin left. 



The moth is on the wing in June, sometimes late May. It 

 occurs, locally, in meadows, frequently damp ones, where there 

 is plenty of ragged-robin {Lychnis flos-cuculi\ the blossoms of 

 which plant it seems to prefer to all others. 



Widely distributed over England, but in Wales only recorded 

 from Capel Curig and Barmouth, in the north of that country 

 (1900). In Scotland its range extends to Moray; and in 

 Ireland it is found in counties Wicklow, Cork, Clare, West- 

 meath, Monaghan, Sligo, and Galway. 



Cistus Forester {Ino {Adscita) geryon). 



This species is much smaller than the last ; the fore wings, 

 the outer margins of which are somewhat rounded, are bronze 

 green, but, in the male, rather dull in tint, sometimes tinged 

 with golden towards the base. The antennae are more stumpy 

 than those of statices, but in other respects they are similar in 

 appearance. The female is not much smaller than the male. 

 (Plate 147, Figs. loj, ii$.) 



The caterpillar is yellowish white, with bristle-bearing warts 

 of pretty much the same colour ; three lines on the back, the 

 central one whitish, edged on each side with purplish, the others 

 waved and of a claret colour; a reddish-brown stripe low down 



