NOCTUAS. 



293 



shaped dark brown spots : the hind -wings are 

 pale at the base, and smoky-brown towards the 

 margin ; the discoidal spot is very small and 

 usually circular : the fringe is pale : the head, 

 thorax, and body are brown ; the body having 

 a tinge of rufous towards the extremity ; the 

 sides and extremity of the body are clothed 

 with long hair-like scales. The female is 

 usually considerably larger than the male. 



The CATF.RPILLAR lives almost entirely be- 

 neath the surface of the ground, in grass 

 pastures, and its mode of life can only be 

 inferred from this circumstance : the head is 

 nearly equal in width to the second segment, 

 it is very glabrous : the body is almost uni- 

 formly cylindrical ; the colour of the head is 

 testaceous-brown; of the body dingy gray- 

 brown, with a medio-dorsal as well as a 

 lateral stripe on each side yellowish ; on the 

 second and thirteenth segments, respectively, 

 is a glabrous plate, somewhat darker than the 

 ground colour. It feeds on the roots of grass, 

 and changes to a CHRYSALIS beneath the sur- 

 face of the ground. 



The MOTH appears on the wing at the end 

 of August, or early in September, and is found 

 more or less abundantly on commons, moun- 

 tains, and meadows naturally clothed with 

 grass. (The scientific name is Gharceas Gra- 

 minis.) 



Obs. 1. The caterpillar has always been 

 notorious for the injuries it causes in grass 

 lands. Linnaeus emphatically says, " This is 

 the most destructive of our Swedish cater- 

 pillars, laying waste our meadows and annihi- 

 lating the crop of hay." In the years 1741 

 and 1778 its ravages were so great as to 

 amount to a national calamity. Guen6e ob- 

 serves that, although met with throughout 

 Europe, including France, it has nowhere 

 caused such a panic as in Sweden. Some 

 authors have asserted that it spares the species 

 of the genus Alopecurus, and others those of 

 the genus Trifolium, but these assertions are 

 not published on authority sufficiently reliable, 

 since there is no evidence of care in the 

 observation on which they are founded. 



Obs. 2. In the first volume of the Entomo- 

 logical Magazine, Mr. Wailes has published 



some remarks on this moth, which I consider 

 of such general interest that I think no 

 apology is needed for quoting them entire : 

 " Though the devastations committed by 

 the caterpillars of this moth in our island do 

 not in general appear to bear any comparison 

 with its ravages in the Swedish pastures, 

 yet when, from the failure of some of the 

 checks appointed for keeping it within 

 proper bounds, the species is left to increase 

 unmolested its effects are very apparent, as 

 the following instance will show. Some 

 years ago, during the spring and early sum- 

 mer, the herbage of a large portion of the 

 level part of the mountain of Skiddaw, near 

 the well which most tourists visit on the 

 ascent, previous to climbing to the summit of 

 the first man, comprising at least fifty acres, 

 and extending some distance down the west- 

 ern side of the mountain, was obwwved, even 

 from the town ox Keswick, to assume a dry 

 and parched appearance ; and so marked was 

 the line, that the progress made by the 

 caterpillars down the mountain could be dis- 

 tinctly noted. Nor was the change of colour 

 of the herbage the only thing that attracted 

 the attention of the good folks of Keswick ; 

 large flocks of rooks, attracted, no doubt, by 

 the abundance of food which these caterpillars 

 afforded them, were every morning seen 

 wending their way to the spot, both from 

 the rookeries at Lord's Island and other 

 places in the vale of Keswick, and also 

 from those of distant ultramontane parts of 

 the neighbourhood ; and, after spending the 

 day in preying upon the unfortunate cater- 

 pillars, on the approach of night, rising in 

 one dense cloud, and dispersing to their 

 respective homes. Though the number of 

 caterpillars must in this manner have been 

 greatly reduced, yet 1 was informed, by a 

 very intelligent friend residing at the foot of 

 the mountain, that in August the moths 

 literally swarmed throughout the neighbour- 

 hood. So completely was vegetation de- 

 stroyed, that, on a visit to the spot in 1830, 

 the extent of their ravages was distinctly 

 visible, being very similar to the effect pro- 

 duced by the burning of heather, which is so 



