394 



BRITISH MOTHS. 



624. The Gray Chi (Folia Chi}. 



G24. THEGRAYOHI. The palpi are scarcely 

 porrected beyond the head, and the terminal 

 joint is extremely small and inconspicuous ; 

 the antennae of the male are slightly ciliated, 

 those of the female simple ; the fore wings have 

 the costal margin nearly straight, but slightly 

 curved towards the tip ; their colour is white 

 or whitish-gray, with numerous darker mark- 

 ings ; the discoidal spots have a dark circum- 

 scription, but a whitish median area, with a 

 slightly darker shade in the centre ; below 

 the discoidal spots and equidistant from both, 

 is a black mark in the shape of a Greek chi ^, 

 which gives its name to the species : the hind 

 wings of the male are pure white, with a 

 delicate marginal black line ; those of the 

 female are clouded with smoke-colour, es- 

 pecially near the hind margin, and on the 

 wing-rays : the head, thorax, and body are 

 pale gray, almost white. There is a beautiful 

 local variety, in which the ground-colour of 

 the fore wings is a delicate olive-green, inter- 

 rupted by four transverse series of pure white 

 spots, the first very short and close to the 

 base ; the second nearly direct, but zigzag ; it 

 is situated before the middle of the wing ; the 

 third very much bent, and situated beyond 

 the middle of the wing ; and the fourth is 



oblique and parallel with the hind margin. 

 The discoidal spots are rather obscure. 



The EGGS are laid in the autumn, and 

 hatched in the spring, from the 17th to the 

 3 1 st of March, When the CATERPILLAR is full- 

 fed its head is slightly porrected, and about 

 equal in width to the second segment ; the 

 body is smooth and almost uniformly cylin- 

 drical, but slightly decreasing in size towards 

 both extremities : the colour of both the 

 head and body is glaucous-green ; the dorsal 

 paler than the ventral area, and interrupted 

 by three slender white stripes, the meclio- 

 dorsal stripe being the least .distinct of the 

 three ; the dorsal area is bounded, on a line 

 with the spiracles, by a narrow black stripe, 

 the upper margin of which melts, through 

 delicate gradations of olive-green, into the 

 pale glaucous-green of the back, but its lower 

 margin is bounded by a very distinct and 

 rather broad pure white stripe ; the belly, 

 legs, and claspers are glaucous-green ; the 

 spiracles are pure white, surrounded by a 

 black ring on the third and fourth segments: 

 in an exquisite drawing by Mr. Buckler, 

 kindly lent me by Mr. Hellins, are repre- 

 sented black dots exactly in the place occu- 

 pied by spiracles in the spiracle-bearing seg- 

 ments. In reference to these abnormal 

 markings, which may be called false spiracles, 

 Mr. Buckler observes : " I have seen simi- 

 lar markings on the larvte of other Noctuas, 

 but very rarely; and I may here mention 

 that in some of the more dingy-coloured 

 Noctuce I have had varieties in which the 

 spiracles have not been visible by any dis- 

 tinction of colour or markings, while in other 

 individuals of the same species they will be 

 most distinct; these aberrant markings on the 

 third and fourth segments are remarkably 

 large on some of the Cucullice when they do 

 occur." Since Mr. Buckler wrote this lie 

 has had the kindness to send me a caterpillar of 

 Anchoscelis pistacina, in which this peculiarity 

 is very apparent. The caterpillar of Folia 

 Chi feeds on the whitethorn (Cratceyus 

 oxyacantha) and sallow (Salix caprea), and 

 when full-fed, which is about the middle 

 of May, it descends to the ground, and 



