60 



BRITISH MOTHS. 



have been previously described, I next visited 

 the late J. G-. Children, who was then prin- 

 cipal zoologist in the British Museum, and 

 whose unrivalled collection of entomological 

 works was always at the service of entomo- 

 logists seeking information. The supposed 

 new moth was soon made out to be the 

 Geometra zonaria, both of Hubner and 

 Duponchel. The discoverer was Mr. Nicholas 

 Cook, who found a single specimen on some 

 rushes at Black Rock, near Liverpool, in 

 September, 1832, and the following year 

 about twenty specimens, females as well as 

 males, were taken on the same spot. Since 

 then it has been taken in profusion in three 

 or four localities in the same neighbourhood, 

 all of them so near together as to be re- 

 garded as one, which has been variously 

 recorded under the names of Birkenhead, 

 the Eed Nun, Blackrock and New Brighton. 

 They are all in Cheshire. (The scientific 

 name is Nyssia zonaria.) 



127. The Small Brindled Beauty (Nyssia hispidaria). 

 127. THE SMALL BRINDLED BEAUTY. The 

 female is entirely without wings. The male 

 has small rounded wings, dark brown, with a 

 broad transverse paler band very near the 

 hind margin ; on the dark part of the wing 

 are slight indications of two darker, almost 

 black, transverse zigzag lines ; the fringe is 

 long and dark brown, with a few pale spots; 

 hind wings pale smoke-coloured, with a darker 

 but indistinct transverse bar in the middle ; 

 antenna? feathered and ochre-yellow-coloured ; 

 head black ; thorax very large, square and 

 hairy, black, powdered with grey; body black 

 and very hairy. I never found the caterpillar 

 of this moth, but it is described in Mr. 

 Stainton's Manual as brown-grey, more or 

 less variegated with delicate orange markings, 

 with a few orange warty protuberances. It 

 feeds on the oak. This moth is abundant in 

 Richmond Park, where the chrysalis is dug 

 u p round the roots of oak trees ; also in the 



New Forest, in Hampshire, and in the north 

 of England, but I do not consider it gene- 

 rally common. (The scientific name is Nyssia 

 hispidaria.) 



128. The Brindled Beauty (Biston hirtana). 



128. THE BRINDLED BEAUTY. All the 

 wings smoky-brown, sprinkled with dots of 

 yellowish-brown ; the fore wings of the male 

 have six irregular rather indistinct narrow 

 transverse black bands ; two of them are 

 almost close together near the base of the 

 wing ; the third crosses the wing rather be- 

 fore the middle ; the fourth, fifth and sixth 

 are close together and half way between the 

 third and the hind margin ; and the margin 

 itself is spotted with black ; the hind wings are 

 rather more smoke-coloured and rather more 

 transparent than the fore wings ; they have 

 three transverse waved blackish lines, very 

 distinct on the inner margin only. The wings 

 of the female have the same markings as those 

 of the male, but are more transparent. The 

 antennaB of the male are beautifully fea- 

 thered ; those of the female thread-like ; the 

 head, thorax and body are of the same colour 

 as the wings ; the thorax of the male very 

 hairy. 



The caterpillar is without humps; the 

 ground colour is of two shades, dingy purple- 

 brown and red-brown ; these colours are ar- 

 ranged in alternate stripes from head to tail, 

 and each two stripes are divided by an irre- 

 gular black line; on the back of each segment 

 are two small raised bright-yellow spots; there 

 is a ring of the same yellow colour just 

 behind the head, and a row of seven yellow 

 spots along each side; the head, feet and 

 claspers are pink, dotted with black. This 

 caterpillar feeds in June and July on pear, 

 plum, lime, &c., and sometimes occurs in such 

 numbers about London as to strip the trees 



