50 



BEITISH MOTHS. 



perhaps, placed them alphabetically accord- 

 ing to names, which in three instances out of 

 four were misplaced ; or, perhaps, still worse 

 than all, he followed some printed list, the 

 author of which possessed even less know- 

 -ledge of the subject than the collector who 

 sought assistance from its pages. The era 

 of ignorance has happily passed away : the 



Geometers have been most careful studied by 

 Messrs. Gruenee and Doubleday, their natural 

 affinities made out, and their numerous species 

 divided into seventeen families, all of them 

 clearly defined and tolerably easy to dis- 

 tinguish. The first of these families is the 

 ITroptcrygidoe or Swallow-tails, and contains 

 only one British species. 



103. The Swallow-Tailed Moth (Uropteryx sambucata). 



103. THE SWALLOW-TAILED MOTH. All 

 the wings of a pale delicate sulphur-yellow ; 

 the fore wings have two slender transverse 

 olive-coloured streaks, both of which com- 

 mence on the costal margin: the first at 

 one-third of the distance between the base 

 and the tip, the second at two-thirds ; besides 

 these there are numerous other very slender 

 short transverse streaks, all of them very 

 indistinct and inconspicuous : the hind wings 

 have a single obliquely-transverse streak, 

 extending from the costal margin to the anal 

 angle ; about the middle of the hind margin 

 is a short tail, having aT distinct but rather 

 small dark spot on each side at the base ; 

 the fringe of the hind wings is ochreous, the 

 head is brown, the eyes black ; the thorax 

 and body are of the same sulphur-colour as 

 the wings. The caterpillar exactly resembles 

 a twig ; it has a hump on the fourth seg- 

 ment, and one on each side of the seventh, 

 ninth and twelfth segments, and two points 

 on the last segment ; it is extremely variable 



in colour yellow-brown, red-brown, and olive- 

 brown being the prevailing tints : and what- 

 ever the colour, there are invariably palo 

 stripes along the sides : it feeds on honey- 

 suckle, elder, several fruit trees, and on many 

 herbaceous plants, particularly Forget-me- 

 not ; it is most commonly met with in October, 

 and hybernatcs, or lays up for the winter, in 

 crevices of the bark of trees; it is found 

 feeding again in May, and in June constructs 

 a hammock of silk and fragments of leaves ; 

 this it suspends from the underside of a twig, 

 by i few silken cords, and within this ham- 

 mock it changes to a light brown chrysalis, 

 spotted with black. It remains four weeks 

 in the chrysalis state, and about the 10th of 

 July comes out a perfect Moth. It is very 

 common in the south of England, and may- 

 be seen of an evening flying about our hedges 

 and gardens ; from its large size and pale 

 colour, it is very easily seen and captured. 

 (The scientific name is Uropteryx samlu- 

 cafa.) 



