108 



BRITISH MOTHS. 



333. The Red Carpet (Coremia munitata). 



333. THE RED CARPET. The antennae of 

 the male are strongly pectinated more than 

 half their length ; the tips are simple ; the 

 fore wings are slightly falcate ; they have a 

 reddish blotch at the base, then a narrow gray 

 band, then a broad reddish band with darker 

 margins, and a long discoidal spot of the same 

 darker tint, and delicately margined with 

 white ; the inner margin of this band is con- 

 cave, the outer sinuous ; lastly, there is a 

 broad gray marginal band traversed through- 

 out by a slender waved white line, within 

 which white line the marginal band is whitish 

 gray, and outside the white line pinkish gray ; 

 at the extreme tip of the wing is an oblique 

 streak, above which the gray tint is whiter, 

 below it redder and darker : the hind wings 

 are dingy gray, with waved transverse mark- 

 ings both lighter and darker; the head, thorax, 

 and body are dingy gray. 



The Rev. Joseph Greene has reared this moth 

 from the egg, which was hatched in June ; the 

 young CATERPILLARS fed on groundsel during 

 the autumn ; they grew very slowly ; before 

 winter they left off eating altogether, but in 

 early spring again ate the groundsel, and were 

 full-fed before the end of March. The cater- 

 pillar when full-fed is an inch in length, the 

 ground colour dull green, or brown, but very 

 variable ; the segments pink or flesh-coloured; 

 the body is slightly sprinkled with black dots, 

 with two very distinct blotches on the sixth 

 and seventh segments, the latter being the 

 largest. It spins up in moss, and turas to a 

 brown CHRYSALIS. 



The MOTH appears in June and July, and 

 seems to be a northern insect ; it has been 

 taken most abundantly in Orkney. I have 

 seen in the boxes of a collector who had sum- 

 mered in Orkney, hundreds of this species, 



but so bad was their condition, that I could 

 not select a dozen worth preserving; there 

 are several localities in Scotland, and some in 

 the northern counties of England. Mr. Bir- 

 chall also reports it as taken by Mr. Bristow 

 at Belfast. (The scientific name is Coremia 

 munitata.} 



334. The Flame Carpet (Coremia propugnata). 



334. THE FLAME CARPET. The antenna? of 

 the male are slightly pectinated; the fore wings 

 have a chocolate blotch at the base, then a 

 pale gray band almost white, then a chocolate 

 band barred transversely with two shades, 

 and including an elongate white discoidal 

 spot ; this band is concave on its inner, and 

 doubly angled on its outer margin ; lastly, 

 there is a broad gray marginal band traversed 

 through half its length by a delicate waved 

 white line : the hind wings are dingy gray, 

 with transverse markings ; the head, thorax, 

 and body are gray, the margins of the segments 

 chocolate-brown. 



The CATERPILLAR is figured in Sepp's ex- 

 quisitely beautiful work on Dutch Lepidop- 

 tera ; it is represented feeding on a species 

 of cabbage (Brassicci). The ground colour is 

 a reddish gray, with a medio-dorsal series of 

 triangular markings of a rosy-pink, and a 

 lateral stripe in the region of the spiracles of 

 a dingy yellow. 



The MOTH flies in May and June, and again 

 in August, and occurs in most of our English 

 and some of our Scotch counties. Mr. Eirchall 

 found it abundant at Powerscourt, in Ireland. 

 (The scientific name is Coremia propugnata.} 



335. The Red Twin-spot Carpet (Coremia fern 

 335. THE RED TWIN-SPOT CARPET. The 



