226 



BBITISH MOTHS. 



wings ; the body of the same colour as the 

 hind wings. 



The CATERPILLAR has a greenish head, 

 and the body is uniformly cylindrical to 

 the twelfth segment, which is rather tumid, 

 and has two distinct but approximate warts 

 on its back. The colour is glaucous-green, 

 paler on the back ; the warts are tipped 

 with pink, and armed at the tip with a small 

 fascicle of short black bristles ; a slender 

 bluish median stripe originates on the back 

 of the third segment, and passes in a direct 

 line to between the pink-tipped warts on 

 the twelfth segment ; the back is particu- 

 larly inclined to white on each side of this 

 median stripe ; on each side of the body is 

 a series of white spots, most of which en- 

 close a black spiracle, and behind each white 

 spot, and closely adjoining it, is a pink 

 spot : this series of spots is connected to- 

 gether by a number of slender white lines, 

 and the whole together constitute what 

 might with propriety be called a spiracular 

 stripe. All parts of the body emit scattered 

 black bristles ; the head and second seg- 

 ment have more than the following seg- 

 ments ; the legs and claspers are pinkish ; 

 the belly is distinctly green. It feeds on 

 birch (Betula alba), maple ' 4.cer campestris), 

 oak (Quercus robur), &c., and is usually 

 full-fed in September ; it spins a slight 

 cocoon on the surface of the earth, and re- 

 mains in the CHRYSALIS state all the winter. 

 (See fig. 9, p. 203.) 



The MOTH seems to have no especial sea- 

 son. I have found it from May to Sep- 

 tember, and the caterpillar will occasionally 

 fall to the beating-stick as long as the oak 

 remains in leaf. The species is common 

 wherever I have collected in England, and 

 Mr. Birchall informs us it is abundant at 

 Powerscourt and Killarney, in Ireland. (The 

 scientific name is Notodonta camelina.) 



400. The Maple Prominent (Notodonta cucullina). 

 400. THE MAPLE PROMINENT. The palpi 



are small and inconspicuous ; the antennae 

 are slightly pectinated in the male, quite 

 simple in the female : the fore wings have 

 the costa very slightly arched, the tip blunt, 

 the hind margin slightly scalloped, and the 

 inner margin with a slight median projec- 

 tion ; their colour is rusty-brown ; there is 

 a large but vague paler blotch at the costal 

 portion of the base occupying nearly a 

 quarter of the entire area of the wing ; the 

 hind margin of the wing is brown at the 

 tip, but grayish below the tip ; the gray is 

 bounded on the inner side by a slender 

 white bar, which is interrupted in the 

 middle ; most of the wing-rays are dark, 

 but not uniformly so ; the fringe is alter- 

 nately pale gray and dark brown : the hind 

 wings are dingy-brown, with a spotted 

 fringe, and a dark suffused blotch at the 

 anal angle : the head and thorax are 

 coloured much like the fore wings, the body 

 much like the hind wings. 



According to Hiibner, the CATERPILLAR 

 rests with the anal extremity raised, and 

 the anal claspers not touching the food- 

 plant ; the head is rather flat, and about 

 equal in width to the second segment ; the 

 body gradually increases in size to the fifth 

 or sixth segment, and then as gradually 

 decreases to the twelfth, which again in- 

 creases, rising into a medio-dorsal pyra- 

 midal hump : the colour of the head is 

 brown, of the body dingy-white, with a 

 medio-dorsal brown stripe, which, commenc- 

 ing immediately behind the head, expands 

 on the third, fourth, and fifth segments, 

 and then again contracts and terminates in 

 the pyramidal hump ; the spiracles are 

 white, each surrounded by a black ring ; 

 and there is a black dot immediately 

 above and below each ; the ventral area, 

 legs, and claspers are brown. (See fig. 11, 

 p. 203.) 



The MOTH appears on the wing in May. 

 Mr. Greene is said to have taken fifty-four 

 of the caterpillars at Tring, and he informs 

 us that he " found a chrysalis under moss 

 on a beech-tree (Fagus sylvatica), having 

 doubtless wandered from soine neighbour- 

 ing maple." This was in October, at 

 Halton, in Buckinghamshire. (The scien- 

 tific name is Notodonta cucullina,') 



