SCOLIOPTERYX. 121 



slender, with sixteen legs, and feed on trees ; and the pupse are 

 enclosed in oblong silken cocoons, between leaves at the ends 

 of the branches. 



THE HERALD MOTH. SCOLIOPTERYX L1BATRIX. 



(Plate CXXX., Figs I, 2.) 



Bombyx libatrix^ Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. (ed. x.) i. p. 507, no. 54 

 (1758) ; id. Faun. Suec. i. p. 304 (1761) ; Esper, Schmett. 

 iii. p. 357, Taf. 69, fig. 4 (1782 ?). 

 Phal&na Geometra Salictaria, Poda, Ins. Mus. Grsec. p. 92, 



no. 29. pi. ii. fig. 8 (1761). 



Noctua libatrix, Hiibner, Eur. Schmett. iv. fig. 436 (1804?). 

 Calpe Matrix^ Treitschke, Schmett. Eur. v. (2), p. 172 (1825). 

 Calyptra libatrix, Stephens, 111. Brit. Ent. Haust. iii. p. 50 



' (1829). 

 Scoliopteryx libatrix, Kirby, Eur. Butterflies and Moths, p. 



185, pi. 39, fig. i (1880). 

 Gonoptera libatrix^ Buckler, Larvae of Brit. Lepid. vi. pi. 103, 



fig. i (1895). 



The Herald Moth is common throughout Europe, Northern 

 and Western Asia, and North America. It expands from an 

 inch and a half to an inch and three-quarters. 



The head and thorax are reddish, with a ferruginous crest. 

 The antennae are yellowish-brown. The abdomen is grey, 

 varied with reddish, and the legs are brown, spotted with white, 

 with the last joint of the tarsi white, except for a few brown 

 spots above. 



The fore-wings are reddish-brown, marbled with red. There 

 is an irregular red patch at the base, a round white spot on the 

 disc, and two oblique transverse white bands, one a little before 

 the middle, and the other a little beyond it. From the outer 

 band to the apex the colour is grey speckled with dusky, and 

 traversed by a very faint waved whitish streak. The reddish 



