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Che Lrominent Aloths of Buckinghamshire 
By the Rev. H. Harpur-Crewe. 
: he most beautiful family of moths may well be styled the 
eréme de la créme of the British Lepidoptera. There is an in- 
describable softness and beauty of colouring in the caterpillar, 
and a refined loveliness in the perfect insects; they are, with few 
exceptions, so rare and difficult to obtain that they may most 
classically be called the aristocracy of the Scale-winged Moths. 
The name of Prominent Moths is, I may remark, given to this 
family from the very sharp and prominent ridge which the edges 
of the anterior wings of the perfect insect present as it sits at rest ; 
and more especially from the fact that in most of the species 
which form this group there is on the lower edge of each anterior 
wing a small pyramidal appendage which, when the insect sits at 
rest with closed roof-like wings, forms a very remarkable 
prominence towards the centre of the ridge. Our own county of 
Buckingham is singularly rich in this very beautiful group of 
moths. With two or three exceptions they are all found in the 
shire, and that, too, in our own immediate neighbourhood. No 
less than fifteen species have been taken in Buckinghamshire ; I 
have taken thirteen myself. I propose to take them in order and 
tell you how, and where, and when to take them. 
1. Stauropus Fagi (the Lobster Moth).—This insect is one of 
the largest in the group, and also one of the rarest. It derives its 
name from its very singular caterpillar, a most remarkable 
creature, of a reddish-brown colour, with numerous long thin 
sprawling legs, in appearance strongly resembling the crustacean 
whose name it bears. It feeds, as faras my own experience 
goes, exclusively on the beech, in Augustand September. I have 
several times beaten it into an umbrella from the overhanging 
* Read before the Society at the Sixth Evening Meeting of the Fourth 
Winter Session, April 27th, 1869, 
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