NOCTUAS. 



277 



469. The Brindled Ochre (Dasypolia Templi). 



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The under- side of the Brindled Ochre. 



469. THE BRIXDLED OCHRE. The palpi 

 re rather slender and compressed, forming a 

 kind of beak ; the divisions of the joints are 

 not perceptible on account of the muss of 

 scales in which they are clothed ; the trunk is 

 very short, and the moth has rarely been 

 observed using it for procuring the honey of 

 flowers or attracted by the sugar-bait prepared 

 by entomologists : the antennae of the male 

 are doubly fringed, each joint emitting on each 

 side a fascicle of slender hairs, six or eight in 

 the fascicle, and these are of different lengths ; 

 the hairs in each fascicle are approximate at 

 the base, but diverge towards the extremity : 

 the antenna? of the female are downy or 

 velvety, but the down is so short that they 

 appear simple when viewed with the naked 

 eye : the head and thorax are thickly clothed, 

 especially in the males : the wings are ample, 



and their fringe remarkably long ; the fore 

 wings have a straight costa and a rounded tip ; 

 their colour is ochreous-gray, the ochreous 

 tint generally much more apparent in the 

 males than in the females ; both the discoidal 

 spots are paler than the ground colour, but 

 very indistinct and sometimes scarcely per- 

 ceptible, and there are two trans verse zigzag 

 lines darker than the ground colour, but also, 

 like the discoidal spots, very indistinct and 

 imperfectly defined; the first of them is 

 nearer the base than the discoidal spots, and 

 is nearly direct ; the second is exterior to the 

 discoidal spots, curved after leaving the costa, 

 and very oblique ; the hind-marginal area has 

 a darker tint than the rest of the wing, but is 

 interrupted by a pale transverse zigzag line, 

 very undefined : the hind wings are paler 

 than the fore wing.*, and have two indistinct 

 narrow bars rather darker than the ground 

 colour, the margin is also darker ; the head, 

 thorax, and body are dingy gray-brown, in- 

 clining to ochreous in the male : the fore and 

 middle thighs are densely clothed with thick 

 woolly scales as shown in the third figure, in. 

 which it will also be seen that the ornamenta- 

 tion of the under side is different from that 

 of the upper. 



The hybernated females, impregnated in 

 the autumn, lay their EGGS in March on the 

 cow parsnip (Heracleum sphondylium}, in con- 

 finement. Mr. Doubleday found that this 

 event took place about the 20th of March, 

 and that the eggs were fixed on the under- 

 side of the leaves, but whether this is so in a 

 state of nature I am unable to say : the egg 

 is shaped somewhat like an Echinus, but is 

 rather taller, and its sides are ribbed ; when 

 first laid " it is yellowish in colour, with a 

 pinkish-brown spot 011 the top, and a ring 

 rather above the middle; finally turns black 

 a day or two before the hatching of the cater- 

 pillar." The caterpillars " appear about the 

 20th of April ; at first, they are of a dingy 

 olive-colour, with black heads, rather longish- 

 looking in shape." " Some began by attack- 

 ing the leaf itself, and afterwards the stem ; 

 others made at once for the stem, and com- 

 menced eating their way into the interior and 



