458 



BRITISH MOTHS. 



yellowish -white colour and are very distinct; 

 each dot emits a minute and delicate hair from 

 its centre ; the legs are green, spotted with 

 black, the black preponderating ; the ventral 

 surface and claspers are apple-green. It 

 feeds on oak (Quercus Robur] and other trees, 

 and is full-fed about the 1st of June, and then 

 changes to a CHRYSALIS in a cocoon on the 

 surface of the earth. 



The MOTH appears on the wing in August, 

 and comes freely to sugar in our southern and 

 midland counties, extending, but less com- 

 monly, as far north as Yorkshire. Mr. Birchall 

 says it is common at Killarney in Ireland. 

 (The scientificname isAmphipyra pyramided.) 



708. The Mouse (Ampfiipyra Tragopogonis) . 



708. THE MOUSE. The palpi are rather 

 long, and ascend in front of the frontal tuft ; 

 the second joint is rather club-shaped, the 

 scales being closely appressed and lying very 

 smooth ; the terminal joint is naked and 

 pointed, the two points approaching and nearly 

 meeting. The antennae are simple, the fore- 

 wings are slightly arched on the costa and 

 rounded at the tip ; their colour is dull brown 

 but shining ; the orbicular is simply a black dot ; 

 the reniform two black dots placed one above 

 the other as in the printed colon : the hind 

 wings are gray-brown rather paler at the base : 

 the head and thorax are dull brown ; the body 

 gray-brown. 



The CATERPILLAR rests with its back slightly 

 curved, the extremities being somewhat 

 elevated, but not so conspicuously as in the 

 Cuspidates : the head is narrower than the 

 second segment, into which it is partially 

 received : the body is smooth and velvety, 

 almost uniformly cylindrical, but with the 

 twelfth segment dorsally raised into an 

 angular protuberance. The colour of the 



head and body in some specimens I examined 

 was glaucous-green, in others apple-green ; 

 in the glaucous specimens there were two 

 narrow and rather distant white stripes, which 

 commenced very faintly on the second segment, 

 and ascended making an obtuse angle on the 

 twelfth and vanished on the thirteenth, in the 

 apple-green specimens these stripes were pale 

 yellow ; in both there was a lateral stripe, 

 equally narrow, just below the spiracles; this 

 also was white in the glaucous specimen, 

 yellow in the apple-green ones ; it commenced 

 on the second segment, and was continued the 

 entire length of the caterpillar and round its 

 anal flap ; this side-stripe is margined above 

 with black, the black being sometimes inter- 

 rupted, but generally running from spiracle 

 to spiracle, and surrounding each with a 

 narrow black ring ; the spiracles are oblong 

 and pure white : scattered over the body are 

 a few short and very slender bristles, only 

 visible under a lens of moderate power : the 

 legs ai'e yellowish green : the claspers con- 

 colorous with the body. They were full-fed 

 on the 24th of May. My specimens fed on 

 the white thorn (Cratcegus oxyacantka), but 

 in gardens the caterpillars are very partial to 

 larkspurs : they retired just beneath the sur- 

 face of the earth on the 25th, and there changed 

 to smooth CHRYSALIDS, without spinning any 

 web or cocoon. 



The MOTH appears on the wing in July and 

 August, and is common and generally distri- 

 buted in England. Scotland and Ireland. (The 

 scientific name is Amphipyra Tragopogonis.) 



709. The Gothic (Ncenia typica). 



709. THE GOTHIC. The pal pi are porrected 

 and ascending, the second joint flattened and 

 very scaly, the scales forming a projecting lobe 

 in front, beneath the terminal joint, which is 



