188 
BUFF-TIP MOTH. 
nally, and bounded on tbe inner side by two parallel 
rust-coloured lines, which are continued to the 
inner edge of the wing : before the middle there is 
likewise a double transverse rusty line, and a single 
blackish one near the base. The fringe is yellowish, 
variegated with rust-red, and preceded by a con- 
tinuons series of small crescent-shaped marks of the 
latter colour. The under wings are entirely yel- 
lowish-white above, with a faint dusky suffusion on 
the disk. The thorax, which is very uide and 
strong, is ochrey-yeUow, surrounded ■with two pa- 
rallel lines of dark rust-red. The abdomen is 
nearly of the same colour as the imder ■wings, and 
has a row of dusky marks, one on each segment, on 
both sides. 
The caterpillars are blackish when young, but 
■^vhen full groAvn they are yellow, with numerous 
longitudinal black stripes on each segment inter- 
rupted at the incisures ; the head is likewise black, 
as well as the outer side of the legs. (PI. xv. fig. 4.) 
It is a gregarious larva, and consumes the leaves of 
the elm (particularly the W3xh elm), the beech, the 
oak, the hrae, and the willow. By thus feeding in 
company, they often strip a tree of a large portion 
of its foliage in a very short time. When newly 
excluded from the egg, they arrange themselves 
side by side, in considerable detachments, and com- 
mencing at one end of a leaf, eat their way to the 
other, consimiing the parenchyma or pulpy sub- 
stance only half-way through. Ha^ving attained 
their full gro^ivth, which is usually the case by 
