100 THE PROMINENT MOTHS OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, 
A 
7. Notodonta cucullina (the Maple Prominent).—This rare and 
beautiful Prominent may be said to have its head .quarters in 
Buckinghamshire. I once took two larveo in Suffolk, and a 
friend during many years collecting took four of the perfect insect 
in the same county. I once beat two larvee from a maple bush in 
Herts. It has been taken a few times in Norfolk and Kent, 
but until about sixteen years ago it was one of the very rarest of 
our British Lepidoptera, and lucky wasthe collector who possessed 
a specimenin hiscabinet, It so happened that one midsummer 
day about that time I was entomologising in a wood in this parish 
(Drayton-Beauchamp), when at the back of some maple leaves I 
found a number of delicate white eggs, which I at once saw to be 
the eggs of a species of Prominent Moth closely allied to the Cox- 
comb, but undoubtedly distinct. I watched these eggs with the 
greatest care: in due time the little larvae hatched, and when full 
fed I found to my intense delight that I had reared the caterpillar 
of that beautiful rarity —the Maple Prominent. During the 
same season my friend Mr. Greene took a number of the larvee in 
the woods at Halton, and he and I subsequently took a large 
number in the woods in this neighbourhood, ‘The Rev. Bernard 
Smith has also taken it plentifully in the neighbourhood of Marlow, 
and there is little doubt that it occurs in most parts of the county. 
The moth appears about midsummer; the larva—which is pale 
whitish-green, slightly hairy, with a hump in the middle of the 
back, and always rests with its tail in the air—feeds exclusively 
on the maple, and prefers those bushes which are in the middle 
of the beech woods. It is full fed in September. It feeds on the 
underside of the leaf and may easily be seen by turning the 
branches back one by one, or it may be beaten into an umbrella. 
The moth in shape and form most closely resembles the preceding 
species, the Coxcomb, but differs widely in the colouring of the 
upper wings, which are conspicuously variegated with buff and 
white, 
8. Notodonta Carmelita (the Carmelite Prominent).—-This 
beautiful moth, one of the rarest of its class, has for many years 
past been taken sparingly in Black Park, a wood belonging to 
