228 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



shall not find one, as is far from being a common moth, and is by no means 

 generally distributed. 



But the declining sun warns us that October brings us shortening days 

 and that evening will be speedily coming on. We have no need however to 

 hasten home yet ; on the contrary, we will walk on to where we know the 

 ivy is blooming profusely, for there we feel assured that by the aid of the 

 lantern, which we have thoughtfully brought with us, we shall add many a 

 moth to the captures we have already made. The twilight overtakes us as 

 we walk along, and we see the dusk flying lepipoptera fluttering about the 

 withering hedges, and we have plenty of employment for our nets. All the 

 moths, however, seem at present to be one sort; pale ochreous coloured 

 geometrina, with their fore wings marbled with ochreous brown. They are 

 in fact Mottled Umber Moths (Hybemia defoliariaj, and are all males. The 

 females are entirely wingless, and anyone ignorant of entomology would never 

 imagine them to be moths at all. If we light our lantern we shall be pretty 

 certain to find some of them on the hawthorn or sloe stems. 



These Mottled Umber Moths vary very much. Some have two very dis- 

 tinct irregularly-shaped bands across each fore wing, others have these bands 

 more or less obliterated ; and again specimens occur with the wings uniform- 

 ly reddish-brown. They are common moths in most places. 



But while we have been searching with our lantern for the female clefoli- 

 aria, we have found a brown looper caterpillar on a sloe bush, which alarmed 

 by the sudden glare holds itself out stiff and straight, and tries to make be- 

 lieve it is a dead twig. And, indeed, it looks very much like one, especially 

 as it has two little protuberances on the seventh and ninth segments which 

 aid in the deception. But, however, it need not alarm itself, for it is only 

 the caterpillar of the common Rurnia cratmgata, and we do not care for box- 

 ing it. We could find others if we cared by the light of our lantern, but 

 we prefer to hurry on to the ivy-bloom. 



And now we have reached the attractive blossoms, we find the moths there in 

 plenty. The most abundant of them are the grey Ortlwsia lota, the reddish- 

 brown Anchocelis litttra, with dark-grey hind wings, the somewhat larger ches- 

 nut (Cerastis vacinii), the reddish-ochreous and brown Satellite {Scopelosoma 

 satellitia), — easily recognisable by its conspicuously light coloured reniform 

 stigma, showing as a white or orange- coloured crescent; the slender-bodied 

 Xanthia femiginea with pointed tip to its forewings, the thick dentated- 

 winged Miselia oxyacanthce, and the well-known Silver Y-moth (Phisia 

 gamma), which we see bustling about everywhere, not only at dusk, but even 

 in the bright sunshine, all through the summer and autumn. 

 And besides these we shall probably see the yellowish-ochreous Orthoda 



