NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH MOTHS. 



SPHINGIDJS. 



SMERINTHUS OCELLATUS. 



EYED HAWK-MOTH. 



Plate I. Figure 1. 



THIS moth measures from two inches and three quarters 

 to nearly three and three quarters. I have a specimen 

 in my cabinet which is only two inches and a half in width. 

 It is the smallest I ever saw. Male: front wings, which 

 are scooped on the outer side, fine rich rose-tinted grey- 

 brown, very pleasingly variegated with pale chocolate or 

 olive brown, of which there is a bar indistinctly traceable 

 across the middle, waved most on the inner side; the outer 

 corner brown, the tip pale on its upper half. Hind wings 

 elegant rose red, shaded off to grey on the margin, with a 

 large greyish-blue eye spot encircling a black pupil, and 

 surrounded by a black rim, in the shape of a Q with its 

 tail, near the lower corner. 



Localities for this species, which is widely distributed 

 throughout the country, are, among others, York, Scar- 

 borough, Huddersfield, Xafferton, Sutton-on-Derwent, 

 Halton, Wavendon, Lewes, Manchester, Leicester, Fal- 

 mouth, Ashford, Canterbury, Faversham, Bisterne, Car- 

 lisle, Wallasey, Lyndhurst, Bromsgrove, Worcester, Bir- 

 kenhead, Bristol, Epping, Brighton, Blandford, Darling- 

 ton, Burton-on-Trent, Exeter, Cambridge, Preston, Ply- 

 mouth, Stowmarket, Shrewsbury, Winchester, Tenterden, 

 Teignmouth, Worthing, &c. In Scotland it is rare. 



The situations where it is found are very various, as are 

 the trees it frequents in the Iarva3 state, both near water 

 and far from it. 



The dates of the appearance of the perfect insect are the 

 end of May and beginning of June, and on to the 

 beginning of July. June 5, June 11. 



VOL. I. 3! 



