50 



BEITISH MOTHS. 



perhaps, placed them alphabetically accord- 

 ing to names, which in three instances out of 

 four were misplaced ; or, perhaps, still worse 

 than all, be followed some printed list, the 

 author of which possessed even less know- 

 ledge of the subject than the collector who 

 sought assistance from its pages. The era 

 of ignorance has happily passed away : the 



Geometers have been most careful studied by 

 Messrs. G-uenee and Doubleday, their natural 

 affinities made out, and their numerous species 

 divided into seventeen families, all of them 

 clearly defined and tolerably easy to dis- 

 tinguish. The first of these families is the 

 TTropterygidce or Swallow-tails, and contains 

 only one British species. 



103. The Swallow-Tailed Moth (Uropteryx sambucata). 



103. THE SWALLOW-TAILED MOTH. All 

 the wings of a pale delicate sulphur-yellow ; 

 the fore wings have two slender transverse 

 olive-coloured streaks, both of which com- 

 mence on the costal margin : the first at 

 one-third of the distance between the base 

 and the tip, the second at two-thirds ; besides 

 these there are numerous other very slender 

 short transverse streaks, all of them very 

 indistinct and inconspicuous : the hind wings 

 have a single obliquely-transverse streak, 

 extending from the costal margin to the anal 

 angle ; about the middle of the hind margin 

 is a short tail, having a distinct but rather 

 small dark spot on each side at the base ; 

 the fringe of the hind wings is ochreous, the 

 head is brown, the eyes black ; the thorax 

 and body are of the same sulphur-colour as 

 the wings. The caterpillar exactly resembles 

 a twig ; it has a hump on the fourth seg- 

 ment, and one on each side of the seventh, 

 ninth and twelfth segments, and two points 

 on the last segment ; it is extremely variable 



in colour yellow-brown, red-brown, and olive- 

 brown being the prevailing tints : and what- 

 ever the colour, there are invariably pale 

 stripes along the sides : it feeds on honey- 

 suckle, elder, several fruit trees, and on many 

 herbaceous plants, particularly Forget-me- 

 not; it is most commonly met with in October, 

 and hybernates, or lays up for the winter, in 

 crevices of the bark of trees; it is found 

 feeding again in May, and in June constructs 

 a hammock of silk and fragments of leaves ; 

 this it suspends from the underside of a twig, 

 by a few silken cords, and within this ham- 

 mock it changes to a light brown chrysalis, 

 spotted with black. It remains four weeks 

 in the chrysalis state, and about the 10th of 

 July comes out a perfect Moth. It is very 

 common in the south of England, and may 

 be seen of an evening flying about our hedges 

 and gardens ; from its large size and pale 

 colour, it is very easily seen and captured. 

 (The scientific name is Uropteryx sambu- 

 cata.) 



