HERALD MOTH. 267 



and alighted on the wall near where the box was 

 placed.* 



PINK UNDER-WING MOTH.f 



July llth, 1826. THE caterpillars of the pink 

 underwing abound this year to an immense degree 

 on the common ragwort (Senecio jacobcea), reduc- 

 ing the plants to mere skeletons by their ravages. 

 The caterpillars of the mullein inothj are almost 

 equally plentiful on the plants of the common 

 Verbascum. Both these insects, as far as I have 

 observed, are periodical in their appearance, shew- 

 ing themselves in vast quantities after an interval 

 of a few years. 



I have a singular variety of the Callimorpha jacobcea 

 in my cabinet, taken near Cambridge, in which the 

 bright red of the under wings is exchanged for a 

 pale orange yellow. 



HERALD MOTH. 



THIS insect, as is well known, makes its appear- 

 ance generally in the autumn, and hibernates during 



* This faculty, possessed by some of the Lepidoptera to a great 

 extent, is well known to collectors, who often avail themselves of 

 this way of obtaining the male sex of certain species. See some 

 remarks by Haworth on this practice, with amusing details, in his 

 Lepidoptera Britannica, p. 82. 



f Callimorpha jacobtea, Steph. Illust. (Haust.) vol. ii. p. 90. 



J Cucullia verbasci, Steph. Id. vol. iii. p. 85. 



Calyptra libatrix, Steph. Id. vol. iii. p. 50. 



N 2 



