86 THE MOTHS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



The Waved Black {Parascotia fuUginarid), 



In the shape of its wings and general appearance the dingy 

 insect represented on Plate 36, Fig. 2, would seem to belong to 

 the Geometridse rather than to the present group, and, indeed, 

 has been mistaken for a dark form of Ematin-ga atomaria. 

 However, the long, projecting palpi are evidence of its being a 

 member of this sub-family. 



The caterpillar, which is moderately stout, and tapers slightly 

 towards each end, has only twelve feet. Ground colour, sooty 

 black, with orange-coloured raised dots, from which arise long 

 recurved hairs. The late Mr. W. H. Tugwell (from whose 

 description of the larva that given above has been adapted), in 

 1884, was shown caterpillars upon a black sooty-looking fungus 

 (determined by Dr. M. C. Cooke as an effused Muscedine), 

 growing in masses on rotten wood in an old wooden building in 

 Bermondsey, near the river. He afterwards reared the moths. 



The caterpillar hatches from the Qgg in August, but it is not 

 full grown until May or June, when it spins a fairly compact 

 cocoon of greyish silk, which is coated with particles of decayed 

 wood and dried fungus. 



The moth is out in June and July, and most of the known 

 British specimens have been captured in London, or reared 

 from caterpillars found therein. Stephens (1831) mentions 

 three or four examples taken during the previous thirty years, 

 and gives as localities — Blackfriars bridge, and Little Chelsea ; 

 Stainton (1859) adds, Fleet Street. Other specimens have been 

 taken in the City in 1855, 1859, 1862, 1870, 1879, and 1881. 

 One occurred at Clapham in 1864, and one has been reported 

 from Crome in Worcestershire. More recent records are— one 

 specimen flying around a sugared post at Walthamstow, July 

 29, 1901 ; eight, chiefly at light, at Camberley, 1904-5 ; one at 

 St. Katharine's Docks, July, 1906, and one in Surrey, July, 1917. 



