GEOMETERS. 



179 



the wings following their sinuous outline, 

 but interrupted by a pale gray spot on 

 each wing-ray as it passes through this 

 marginal line : the head, thorax, and body 

 are of the same colour as the wings; the 

 basal segment of the body has a black belt 

 interrupted in the middle, and two black 

 dots placed transversely on each of the 

 following segments. 



The CATERPILLAR feeds on the leaves of the 

 common barberry (Berberis vulgaris), a plant 

 formerly abundant in our eastern counties, 

 but now in the process of extermination, 

 under the insane idea that it produces blight 

 in wheat My kind friend Mr. W. R. 

 Jeffery, of Saffron Walden, has sent me a 

 dozen of these caterpillars, greatly varying 

 in size ; when young, they spin together 

 two leaves of the barberry, adjusting the 

 edges with so much care that the two 

 leaves look like one ; the back of the upper 

 leaf I always find applied to the face of 

 the lower ; and between these leaves the 

 enclosed caterpillar rests in a curved pos- 

 ture, the head brought round to touch the 

 side of the tenth segment, but the cater- 

 pillar always resting on its ventral surface, 

 and not ring-fashion : in this retreat it eats 

 the cuticle and parenchyma of the upper 

 leaf, its operations betraying its whereabouts 

 by the appearance of a large brown blotch 

 on the surface. 



The full-fed caterpillar is obese and some- 

 what depressed; the head glabrous, narrower 

 than the body, which is of nearly uniform 

 substance throughout, and furnished, on the 

 sides especially, with minute scattered bristles : 

 there are no excrescences. The colour of the 

 head is wainscot-brown, with a few black 

 dots ; the body has the dorsal area dull 

 lead-colour, bordered with a blackish stripe 

 on each side ; beneath this is a series of 

 orange spots, and in the middle of each 

 spot a black spiracle ; the ventral surface is 

 pale smoke-colour, with two darker blotches 

 on each side of each segment, the upper of 

 which is small and roundish, the lower 

 larger and longer ; intermediate between the 

 lead-coloured dorsal area and its marginal 



dark stripe, is a series of white dots ; the legs 

 are dark ; the claspers concolorous with the 

 ventral surface. The caterpillars are full-fed 

 about the beginning of July. 



The MOTH appears on the wing in May and 

 June, in which months I have found it not 

 unfrequently on park palings on Blackheath; 

 it has also been taken in Essex, Cambridge- 

 shire, and Gloucestershire, but I have not 

 heard of it from Scotland or Ireland. (The 

 scientific name is Scotosia certata.) 



349. The Scallop Shell (Eucosmia undulata). 



349. THE SCALLOP SHELL. The antennae 

 are simple in both sexes ; the fore wings are 

 broad and ample, the tips rather pointed, the 

 hind margin is almost straight, that of the 

 hind wings scalloped; the inner margin of the 

 hind wings is dilated near the middle, and 

 beneath the dilatation, and partially protected 

 by it, there is, in the male only, a beautiful 

 tuft of long scales, which project beyond the 

 dilated margin, and form a conspicuous object 

 even when the insect is viewed from above. 

 The ground colour of the wing is grayish- 

 brown, transversely traversed by fourteen 

 zigzag black lines, the crenations of which, as 

 far as the ninth, which includes the discoidal 

 spot, are directed towards the hind margin, 

 the remainder towards the base of the wing, 

 thus frequently producing a chain-like orna- 

 mentation towards the middle of the wing ; 

 the hind margin is sienna-brown, intersected 

 throughout by a zigzag white line : the hind 

 wings are rather paler than the fore wings, 

 with four distinct, and two (nearer the base) 

 indistinct black zigzag lines; the hind margin 

 is sienna-brown, intersected throughout by a 

 zigzag white line ; the fringe is alternately 

 pale and dark : the tuft on the hin J wings of 

 the male is black ; the head, thorax, and body 

 are gray-brown ; there are two darker spots 



