78 THE MOTHS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



The caterpillar is ochreous brown, sprinkled and lined with 

 reddish brown ; a stripe low down along the sides is reddish 

 orange. It feeds, in July and August, on the leaves of oak and 

 poplar, but it has not been found in our Isles. 



The Alchymist {Catephia akhymista). 



This moth seems to have been known as a British species to 

 Haworth, but he, and subsequently Stephens (1830), referred it 

 to Noctua leucovielas^ Linn. At all events, Stephen's description 

 of the specimen in Haworth's cabinet bearing this name applies 

 exactly to C. alchymista. In the Ent. Ann. for i860 there is a 

 figure of a specimen that was taken at sugar in the Isle of 

 Wight, September, 1868. Seven years later, one was captured 

 in an oak wood near Horsham, Sussex (June 4), and another 

 found on the trunk of an oak tree near Colchester (June 9). In 

 1882, a specimen was taken at sugar in a wood near Dover 

 (June), and on June 24, 1888, one came to sugar at St. 

 Leonards, Sussex. In the last-named year, two other speci- 

 mens, said to have been taken in the Isle of Wight, July, 

 1867, were recorded. 



Fig. 2, Plate 29, represents a specimen from Dalmatia. 



The Clifden Nonpareil {Catocala fraxini). 



This handsome species (Plate 29, Fig. 3) seems to have been 

 known to quite the earliest writers on, and delineators of, 

 British moths, and a specimen in the Dale collection, now in 

 the Hope Museum, Oxford, was obtained in Dorset in 1740. 

 Stephens (1830) mentions captures in the years 1821, 1827, and 

 1828. Since that time the occurrence of the species in the 

 British Isles, chiefly in single specimens, may be tabulated as 

 follows: England — London, 1842, 1870, 1872. Kent, 1S89, 



