292 



BRITISH MOTHS. 



two black streaks; that of the body is a 

 metallic bronze-brown, the dorsal being much 

 deeper in colour than the ventral area ; all the 

 usual stripes are broad, well denned, of a dull 

 white colour, and continuous, except where 

 interrupted by dots of a rosy-brown colour ; 

 there are corneous plates of a shining black 

 on the second and twelfth segments ; the 

 spiracles are entirely black. It feeds in 

 April and May on grasses, afld lives generally 

 underground ; it is a very pretty caterpillar, 

 although its coloxirs are dull, and delights to 

 roll itself in a compact ring : it changes to a 

 CHRYSALIS beneath the surface of the earth. 

 The MOTH appears on the wing at the end 

 of August or beginning of September, and has 

 been taken occasionally in most of our English 

 counties and as far north as Perthshire ; Mr. 

 Birchall says it is common and generally dis- 

 tributed in Ireland. (The scientific name is 

 Heliophobus popularis.) 



487. The Beautiful Gothic (Hdiopholus hispidus). 



487. THE BEAUTIFUL GOTHIC. The palpi 

 are small and inconspicuous, the terminal 

 joint naked ; the antennae are pectinated in 

 the male, simple in the female : 'the fore 

 wings are straight on the costa, rather pointed 

 at the tip, and waved on the hind margin ; 

 their colour is umber-brown, with four trans- 

 verse pale lines ; the first is short, zigzag, 

 and veiy near the base ; the second is 

 nearly direct, and situated before the or- 

 bicular ; the third is much bent, and situated 

 beyond the reniform ; near the costa it bends 

 towards the base of the wing ; the fourth is 

 very distinct, oblique, and parallel with the 

 hind margin ; the discoidal spots are pale and 

 very distinct, and immediately below them is 

 a forked wing-ray quite white, and there is a 

 second white wing-ray" parallel with the inner 

 margin ; there is a very dark slender waved 



488. The Antler (Charceas Graminis). 



488. THE ANTLER. The palpi are slightly 

 porrected, the terminal joint naked but not 

 exceeding in length the hair-like scales of the 

 preceding joint ; the antenna? are pectinated 

 in the males, the pectinations decreasing in 

 length to the tip, which is very pointed ; 

 those of the female notched or serrated, each 

 joint bearing a single hair : the fore wings are 

 small and short, straight on the costa, and 

 simple on the hind margin ; their colour is 

 reddish-brown, the orbicular spot is small and 

 ovoid ; the reniform is pale, and united at its 

 lo\ver extremity with a forked whitish in- 

 crassated wing-ray, which is continued to the 

 base, where it unites with a second whitish 

 wing -ray that passes above the orbicular; a 

 third wing-ray of the same pale colour runs 

 parallel with the inner margin ; a pale brown 

 transverse bar crosses the wing half way 

 between the reniform and the hind margin ; 

 beyond this is a series of obscurely wcdge- 



line on the hind margin, and almost close to it 

 a second slender line rather paler : the hind 

 wings of the male are pale gray with a trans- 

 verse median line darker, and the fringe 

 paler; in the female the hind wings are 

 darker ; the head, thorax, and body are gray, 

 the front and sides of the thorax lined with 

 darker. 



The CATERPILLAR is gray dotted with black, 

 the medio-dorsal and sub-dorsal stripes more 

 distinctly dotted (Dup.) (Staintons Jfanual, 

 vol. i., p. 204.) Mr. Doubleday has reared 

 these caterpillars, and found they invariably 

 feed on grass. 



The MOTH appears in September, and has 

 been taken, but not abundantly, in Devon- 

 shire and the Isle of Wight, but nowhere 

 north of those counties. (The scientific name 

 is Heliophobus 



