40 PLATE DLV. 



as a fingle fpecies: the fubjea reprefented in that plate is the Yellow- 

 tail, and the prefent feems requifite to complete the h,ftory of thole 

 two apparently ambiguous infects. 



There is a diffimilarity, and that fo confiderable, between thofe two 

 infefts, though at the mil view they may appear analogous, that, after 

 due comparifon, it muft excite furprize to learn they could have been 

 efteemed the fame by any competent Naturalift; yet they certainly 

 were, and not by Linnaeus only ; nor do they feem, even at this mo- 

 ment, to be very accurately denned as diftinct kinds by the generality 

 of continental writers, fome confidering them as varieties, and others 

 as the two fexes of an individual fpecies. Klemann is an exception 

 among thofe writers ; he admits them to be diftincl on the authority 

 of Roefel, by whom both kinds were reared from the larvze. 



Befides thofe two moths, there is another more clofely allied to the 

 Yellow-tail than the Brown-tail, which has excited fome mifunderftand- 

 ing ; this is the infect called by Engliih collectors the " Spotted Yellow- 

 tail," as it differs from the former in having a large brown made along 

 the coftal margin beneath, and on the upper furface one or more ob- 

 fcure dots. Fabricius, whofe opinion is countenanced by the autho- 

 rity of Villars and Schaeffer, defcribes it as a diftinct fpecies, under 

 the name of Auriflua, and this opinion is repeated in the work of 

 Ginelin: our Engliih collectors regard it, and not without probability, 

 as a fexual difference of the common Yellow-tail: we are perfuaded 

 it is no other than the male of that fpecies ; — the male of the Brown- 

 tail Moth, we may further add, exhibits a fimilar appearance beneath. 



The hiilory of the Brown-tail Moth is amply related in a little tract 

 publiihed about thirty years ago by the late Mr. W. Curtis, author 

 of the Flora Londinenfis. The occafion upon which that tract was 

 written is nightly mentioned in our defcription of the " Yellow-tail," 

 and may now with propriety be repeated at greater length. The 

 period of time elapfed fince the appearance of Mr. Curtis's publica- 

 tion is not confiderable ; yet, from the various viciflitudes to which 

 fuch a memorial of local events is neceffarily expofed, this interefting 



pamphlet 



