THE VESTAL. 



HYDRIOMENIN.^. 



The Yestal {Sterrha sacraria). 



The fore wings are pale yellow inclining to ochreous, and the 

 front edge is more or less tinged with the same colour as that 

 of the oblique stripe from the tips of the wings to the middle of 

 the inner margin. In the type, this stripe is purplish-brown^ 

 but in ab. labda, Cramer, it is crimson, and in ab. atrifasciaria, 

 Stefan, it is blackish. In ab. sanguinaria, Esper, the ground 

 colour is pinkish. The hind wings are always white. (Plate 54, 

 Figs. I and 2.) 



From 1857, in which year the first specimen recorded as 

 British was captured in September at Plymouth, to 1874, one 

 or more examples of this interesting migrant seem to have 

 occurred during the autumns of most years, in some part of 

 the British Isles, but chiefly in the South of England. The 

 years in which it was apparently unrecorded were i860, 

 1861, 1870, 1872, and 1873. Since 1874 there have been 

 very few records. In 1879 a male specimen was taken at 

 Chingford, Essex, August 17th, and a female (ova obtained) 

 on September ist; a specimen occurred at Christchurch, 

 Hants, October, 1893; a male was obtained in the Isle of 

 Purbeck, Dorset, September, 1895, and one was secured at 

 Timoleague, Co. Cork, in August, 1898 ; one was accounted 

 for at Malvern, Worcestershire, in August, 1901 ; a female 

 in fine condition was captured, as it flew in the sunshine 

 over a Cambridgeshire meadow, in the autumn of 1906. Mr. 

 Edelsten obtained a male specimen in South Devon, on 

 September 12, 1908. Mr. B. H. Smith secured a speci- 

 men in Cornwall, September 8, 191 1. In 1867, nearly 

 thirty were secured, and of these four were taken in May 

 in the Isle of Wight, where also two females were captured on 



