NOCTUAS. 



241 



417. The Poplar Lutestring (Cymatophora Or). 



417. THE POPLAR LUTESTRING. The an- 

 tennae are very slender in both sexes, but 

 slightly stouter in the males than in the 

 females : the fore wings are scarcely curved 

 on the costa, and bluntly square at the tip ; 

 their colour is gray, with two transverse 

 dark lines at the base, and two transverse 

 bands ; the first, the broader of the two, is 

 nearly direct, and is situated before the 

 middle of the wing ; it is composed of four 

 dark lines ; the second, beyond the middle 

 of the wing, is rather oblique, and is com- 

 posed of four zigzag lines ; between these 

 bars the orbicular and reniform discoidal 

 spots are perceptible, but not conspicuous : 

 each has a pale area and a darker border ; 

 near the hind margin is a dark zigzag line, 

 commencing in a dark streak at the tip of 

 the wing, and on the very margin is a 

 slender dark line : the hind wings are dingy- 

 gray : the head, body, and thorax are gray ; 

 the body is stout and of a brownish-gray 

 colour. 



The CATERPILLAR, when full-fed, resides 

 habitually between two leaves d the poplar 

 or aspen (Populus nigra and Populus tre- 

 mula), on which it feeds : the two leaves 

 thus converted into a residence are always 

 on one shoot, so that the wind, moving the 

 shoot or twig altogether, has no tendency 

 to separate them ; they are generally placed 

 with the back of the upper leaf to the face 

 of the lower one, and the edges are united 

 together by silken threads, with much skill 

 and neatness ; in this retreat the caterpillar 

 rests during the day in a curved form, the 

 head being brought round towards the 

 middle of the body, but the body invariably 

 resting on its ventral surface, and not on its 

 side ; when driven from this retreat, it fre- 



quently escapes backwards, and but rarely 

 falls to the ground, generally hanging us- 

 pended by a thread, The head is narrower 

 than the second segment, the face rather 

 flat and porrected ; the body is rather de- 

 pressed dorsally, and flattened ventrally ; it 

 has a number of minute warts, each of which 

 emits a hair. The colour of the head is red, 

 of the body whitish-green, or tinged with 

 glaucous : it has a very bleached and semi- 

 transparent appearance, probably owing to 

 its habit of living protected from the sun- 

 light; there is a medio-dorsal stripe of 

 dingy-green, probably owing to the presence 

 of food in the alimentary canal ; this is 

 especially visible when the caterpillar is 

 crawling, an act which it performs with 

 much activity when expelled from its re- 

 treat ; just below the spiracles is a faint 

 yellowish stripe ; the ventral is rather paler 

 than the dorsal area. It undergoes puba- 

 tion in its retreat, and turns to a red-brown 

 CHRYSALIS. 



The MOTH appears on the wing in June 

 and July, and has been taken in most of our 

 English counties. (The scientific name is 

 Cymatophora Or.) 



418. The Figure of Eighty (Cymatophora ocularit). 



418. THE FIGURE OF EIGHTY. The an- 

 tennae are very slender ; the fore wings are 

 ample, almost straight on the costa, and 

 obtuse at the tip ; their colour is pale brown, 

 with a tinge of red in recently disclosed 

 specimens ; there is a slightly paler trans- 

 verse median band, which contains the 

 reniform and orbicular spots ; these are 

 closely approximate and very conspicuous 

 and ornamental, the central area of each 

 being dark and the border pure white ; on 

 the left wing this ornamentation represents 

 the number 80, on the right wing it is re- 



M 16 



