

CUSPIDATES 



221 



when at rest ; the belly is yellow, with two 

 series of black blotches between the fourth 



1 pair of ventral and the anal claspers. These 

 caterpillars having arrived at their full-fed 

 condition, descend the trunks or stems of the 



i trees on which they have fed, and crawl 

 about the surface of the ground with great 



I activity, often crossing dusty roads and leaving 

 long circuitous tracks in the dust ; sometimes 

 marching over nagged pathways, and being 

 consequently trodden under foot of man, by 

 which casualty hundreds come to an untimely 

 end ; those which escape nestle at the roots 

 of herbage or under fallen leaves, and change 

 to CHRYSALIDS on the surface of the earth, 

 without any web, cocoon, or protection of any 

 kind, and with so little attempt at conceal- 

 ment, that they are frequently seen by the 

 passing entomologist, and are sometimes in 

 such abundance that boys collect them to sell 

 to dealers in entomological specimens at a 

 penny or twopence a dozen : they also con- 

 stitute a favourite food of poultry, and are 

 sought for with great eagerness : dame Partlet 

 may often be seen scratching for them in my 

 own neighbourhood under the lindens. The 

 chrysalis is regularly punctuate, but slightly 

 shining ; its colour is very dark brown ; a 

 deep dorsal notch divides the twelfth and thir- 

 teenth segments ; the latter terminates in two 

 very singular processes, each of which is 

 furcate, the prongs divaricating and acutely 

 pointed. 



The MOTH appears in June, and is abundant 

 in many parts of England and Ireland. (The 

 scientific name is Pi/ycrra bucephala.) 



393. The Chocolate-tip (Clout era citrtula). 



393. THE CHOCOLATE-TIP. The antennae are 

 moderately pectinated in the male, very slightly 

 so in the female : the fore wings have the 

 nl margin straight, the tip obtuse' ; their 



colour is brownish-gray with a tinge of pink, 

 except at the tip, which is occupied by a very 

 large, bright, chestnut-coloured blotch; each 

 wing is traversed by five transverse bars, the 

 first, second, and fourth of which, counting 

 from the base, are very distinct, and almost 

 direct ; they are white or ochreous-white with 

 darker borders, the third is less distinct and 

 less complete ; it is imperfect at both extremi- 

 ties, at its lower extremity not quite reaching 

 the inner margin, and at its upper extremity 

 bending towards and uniting with the fourth, 

 before it reaches the costal margin ; the fifth 

 is little more than a transverse series of irre- 

 gular dots : it intersects the apical blotch, 

 cutting it into two almost equal but irregular 

 sections : the hind wings are gray-brown ; the 

 head is gray-brown ; the thorax is gray-brown ; 

 with a cordate median umber-brown blotch, 

 the smaller end being directed backwards, 

 prolonged and pointed; the body is gray- 

 brown, the extremity umber-brown and 

 spreading. 



The EGGS of the first brood are usually laid 

 during the month of April, on the com- 

 mon aspen (Populus tremula], and other 

 species of poplar. When hatched, the young 

 CATERPILLARS associate in companies, spin 

 together the leaves of the food-plant with- 

 out altering their perfectly flat position, 

 and reside entirely in the domicile thus formed, 

 eating only the upper cuticle and parenchyma 

 of the lower of the two leaves of which their 

 dwelling is composed, and leaving the ribs as 

 it were skeletonized, yet connected together 

 by the lower cuticle. When the leaves form- 

 ing this dwelling are separated, each cater- 

 pillar leaves its domicile at night to feed, and 

 returns to it before morning. The head is 

 rather wider than the body, which is somewhat 

 depressed in form, but of nearly uniform 

 substance throughout ; there is a dorsal hump 

 on the fifth and another on the twelfth seg- 

 ment ; each segment, except the second, which 

 has but a single wart on each side, has also a 

 transverse series of six warts of nearly uniform 

 size, besides a minute wart just behind the 

 spiracle on the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, 

 and twelfth segments; on the ninth, tenth, and 



