134 HAUSTELLATA.— LEPIDOPTERA. 



what rhombic spot, sometimes flavescent and spotless, at others of a cinereous 

 hue, with minute darker spots, and always edged with black or fuscous; to- 

 wards the hinder margin is an undulated angular pale flavescent or whitish 

 striga, and ®n the hinder margin a series of somewhat lunular black spots, mar- 

 gined with flavescent-ash exteriorly ; cilia deeply crenated, fuscous : poste- 

 rior wings bright crimson, with a narrow flexuous, biangulated, black fascia 

 a little behind the middle, and a broader fimbria of the same colour, attenuated 

 towards the apex of the inner margin ; cilia fuscous. 



This beautiful insect, like its congeners, varies considerably in the tint and bold- 

 ness of its colours and markings, but all the variations may be readily known 

 by the darker hue of the anterior wings, and by the distinctly angulated black 

 fascia behind the middle of the posterior wings, as weU as the dark cilia upon 

 the latter. 



Caterpillar with the head bluish, the body variegated with fuscous and light 

 ash, some of the anterior (as well as the caudal) segments tuberculated ; it feeds 

 on the oak ; the pupa is bluish : — the imago appears towards the end of June. 



Rare near London ; a few specimens have occasionally been 

 taken in the larva state upon the oaks in Richmond Park ; near 

 Sydenham woods, Shooters'-hill, Birch-wood and Darenth, and 

 near Leatherhead and Windsor ; but in the New Forest majay 

 examples have been captured in the vicinity of Lyndhurst. 



Sp. 6. promissa. Alis anticis fusco cinereoque variis, strigis dentatis atris; 



posticis coccineis fascid media angustd subabbreviatd fimbridque nigris. (Exp. 



alar. 2 unc. 3 — 10 hn.) 

 No. promissa. Wien. Ferz. — CJa. promissa. Steph. Catal. part ii. p. 112. 



No. 6428. Harris, A. pi 19. f. g~b. 



Head and thorax cinereous, varied withfuscous, thelatter minutely sprinkled with 

 black and flavescent, forming strigae on the anterior margin : anterior wings 

 varied with fuscous and cinereous, and dusted with yellowish and black, and 

 boldly marked with deep black dentated strigae, the second from the base being 

 broad and fasciaeform, slightly waved on its exterior edge and gradually shaded 

 off" on its interior : the following striga is very flexuous towards the costa, and 

 terminates on the inner margin in a lunate whitish spot; between these strigae, 

 towards the costa, is a paler spot having the letters J G indisthictly marked, 

 and between the last striga and the posterior margin is a very much angulated, 

 shghtly waved, pale ashy striga, and on the margin a series of black spots 

 edged outwardly with cinereous ; ciha fuscous-ash : posterior wings rich 

 crimson, with a narrow, scarcely angulated, black fascia behind the middle, 

 very much attenuated towards the inner margin and rarely extending to the 

 margin itself, and a broad black fimbria ; cilia cinereous, clouded and spotted 

 with fuscous. 



This also varies very much, scarcely two specimens occurring alike, but all the 

 varieties may be readily known from those of the preceding insect by the 



