NOCTUAS. 



SUPPLEMENT. 



DURING the progress of this work through 

 the press, seven additional species of MOTH 

 have been discovered in Britain, and have been 

 fully described in the Entomologist or hisect- 

 Hunters' Yew-book, periodicals instituted for 

 the express purpose of preserving a record 

 of every discovery and observation made in 

 British Entomology. These are now re- 

 described in this Supplement, and an unfortu- 

 nate transposition of two of the figures is also 

 pointed out and rectified. 



23*. The Thrift Clearwing (Sesia Philanthiformis) . 



23*. THE THRIFT CLEARWING. The palpi 

 are distant, porrected, and very sharp-pointed, 

 the second joint is clothed with long scales, 

 the terminal joint is naked ; the fore wings 

 are long and narrow, their colour is black, 

 with two transparent spots, the first an elon- 

 gate triangle reaching from the base to the 

 middle of the wing, the second roundish and 

 beyond the middle ; this second spot is tra- 

 versed by three longitudinal wing-rays, and 

 beyond this second transparent spot is a yel- 

 lowish blotch also traversed by three longi- 

 tudinal wing-rays, which are black but rather 



indistinct ; hind wings transparent, with a 

 black disooidal spot, rays and fringe ; the 

 palpi are of two colours black and gray ; in 

 the female the gray predominates; the ter- 

 minal joint is naked, its colour is gray at the 

 base and black at the tip ; the antennae are 

 black, with a slight indication of a gray ring 

 near the tip ; the face is silvery white, the 

 crown of the head and eyes black, the collar is 

 orange in front, black behind ; the thorax is 

 black, with three longitudinal, pale yellow 

 lines ; the body is black, with a medio-dorsal 

 series of gray spots and several narrow whitish 

 belts ; these are usually three in the male and 

 four in the female ; the caudal tuft is black, 

 largely interspersed with pale yellow scales, 

 which in the males occupy the sides, in the 

 females the middle; the legs are alternately 

 dull black and gray. 



The CATERPILLAR has a small shining 

 brownish head and a whitish maggot-like 

 body ; it feeds in the interior of clumps of 

 ihYift(Statice armeria), selecting by preference 

 those which are isolated and starved, and is 

 very rarely found where the thrift is luxuriant 

 and the plants approximate : its presence may 

 readily be detected by the dried and dying 

 appearance of the centre of the tuft : when 

 full-fed, it changes to a CHRYSALIS in the heart 

 of its food-plant ; the chrysalis is pale brown 

 and very shining, and each segment has two 

 transverse rows of rather sharp-pointed dorsal 

 warts directed backwards ; the warts in the 

 first row are more than double the size of 

 those in the second row. 



The MOTH appears on the wing about Mid- 

 summer, and is common at Torquay in Devon- 

 shire, in the Isle of Man, and probably 



