CERIOSTOMA. 161 



NEPTICULA PRUNETORI. 



Mines the sloe-leaf, and has a beautiful dark wing, with 

 a well-defined black line preceding a silvery band. 



NEPTICULA TRIMACULATA, 



the three-spotted moth of the poplar-mining caterpillar, 

 which deposits its egg on the upper, and not on the usual 

 lower side of the leaf, and makes a long gallery running 

 close to one of the ribs, then suddenly eats out a blotch. 

 The larvae are found in July and October; the Moth in 

 May and August, easily recognised by the broad, whitish 

 streak taking up half the breadth of the wing, with two 

 triangular whitish spots beyond the middle. 



But the microscopist need not go further than the common 

 laburnum for one of the prettiest nay, it is a lovely little 

 creature, that glistening, white-winged 



CERIOSTOMA. 



Those unsightly blotches on the leaves are the abode of 

 its larva ; and we lament over the spoiled and crumpled 

 laburnum leaves until we have learnt the life of that most 

 beautiful little moth. The upper wings are pure white, with 

 a pale yellow spot on the costa beyond the middle, and a 

 second spot with parallel lines ; then, near the tip, a large 

 black spot with violet pupil, and three radiating brown 

 streaks in the cilia. No large butterfly is so beautiful. 



There is another Ceriostoma, so like the first as scarcely 

 to be distinguished, and yet it has a variation, and is one 

 of the manifestations of design and order that I cannot but 

 draw attention to. It mines the broom plant, and is 

 easily taken from the middle of June to the end of July. 

 The upper wing is like that of the laburnum miner, except 

 that the second dot has always converging, and not parallel 

 lines that is all ; it is but the bending of a narrow line, 

 invisible to the naked human eye, yet there it ever is, drawn 

 by the Hand whose lightest touch hath purpose and per- 

 fection of design. 



Another species, perhaps lovelier still, 



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