442 



BRITISH MOTHS. 



683. The Small Yellow Underwing (Heliodes 



Arbuti) . 



683. THE SMALL YELLOW UNDERWING. 

 The palpi are rarely porrected beyond the 

 frontal tuft ; the antennae are slender and 

 simple in both sexes ; the fore wings are 

 rather ample, they have a nearly straight 

 costal margin and a pointed, but not acutely 

 pointed, tip ; their colour is rich mahogany- 

 brown sprinkled with a few white scales, and 

 having a median as well as a hind-marginal 

 darker shade ; the fringe is black at the two 

 extremities and in the middle, the rest being 

 rich orange-colour : the hind wings are black, 

 with a median transverse deep yellow blotch 

 and a pale fringe : the head and thorax are 

 dark brown ; the body is very slender and 

 smoky-black, with narrow gray belts. 



The CATERPILLAR is described by Guene"e as 

 having a pale green or gray-green head, body, 

 and legs; the medio-dorsal stripe deeper green 

 and bordered on both sides with white, the 

 sub-dorsal stripe lighter, and the spiracular 

 stripe white, bordered above with darker green 

 or gray. It feeds on field chick weed (Ceras- 

 tium atrvense), and changes to a CHRYSALIS on 

 the surface of the earth. 



The MOTH appears on the wing in May and 

 June ; it is generally distributed in Great 

 Britain, being very abundant in Cornwall, not 

 uncommon in Devonshire, and so on eastwards 

 and northwards, even extending into Scotland, 

 but I cannot learn that it has ever been 

 observed in Ireland. (The scientific name is 

 Heliodes Arbuti.) 



Obs. Engramelle, who calls this little in- 

 sect La Polynome, represents a variety with 

 the hind wings white, a very unusual circum- 

 stance ; it is very little subject to variation. 

 It is the Heliaca of the Vienna Catalogue, 

 Fasciola of Esper, Domestica of the Naturfors- 

 cher, and Policula of others ; so that Engra- 

 inelle's French name is very appropriate. 



684. The Spotted Sulphur (Agrophila sulphwralit) . 



684. THE SPOTTED SULPHUR. The palpi 

 are decidedly porrected, very sharp-pointed, 

 and moderately distant from each other ; the 

 antennae are very slender and alike in both 

 sexes ; the fore wings are very nearly straight 

 on the eosta and scarcely pointed at the tip ; 

 their colour is sulphur-yellow, with two trans- 

 verse black bars parallel with the hind mar- 

 gin, two longitudinal black stripes parallel 

 with the inner margin, and five black spots in 

 the area enclosed between the inner black 

 bar, which is often interrupted or broken up 

 into spots, and the upper black stripe : I find 

 no trace of the discoidal spots ; the fringe is 

 black, slightly interrupted at the costal end 

 with whitish-yellow ; the hind wings are 

 smoky-black ; the face is yellow, the crown of 

 the head black ; the thorax is black on the 

 median disk, yellow on the sides ; the body is 

 belted with black and yellow, but neither 

 colour very bright. 



The following particulars of the CATERPILLAR 

 have been kindly handed me by Mr. Hellins, 

 at the requestof Mr. Brown, of Cambridge, who 

 procured him the eggs : " Unfortunately, 

 only one egg reached me uninjured, and the 

 solitary caterpillar died when it seemed just 

 about to change ; it was hatched June 25th 

 and died August 15th. The food which I 

 gave it, and which it seemed to eat readily, 

 was the field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), 

 and for the first half of its life two small 

 shoots, bearing five or six little leaves, suf- 

 ficed it both for food and resting-place. When 

 first hatched it was of a dingy gray colour, 

 with four black transverse humps on as many 

 of the middle segments ; but at each moult 

 these humps became less and less prominent, 



