1870. ] 
MOTHS AND CATEEPILLAES. 
31 
cause, 'which feeding and canying on its work of devastation out of sight, has escaped the 
notice of superficial observers. Before changing to a chrysalis it spins a very largo tough 
cocoon, composed of silk mixed with fragments of gnawed wood. This caterpillar is the Cossus 
of Pliny and the Roman epicures. The scientific name is Cossus ligniperda. 
The Goat Moth belongs to the Zeuzeridae, a family of Nocturni. That -which 
-we now turn to is one of the Noctua group, and is called the Marvel-du-Jour. 
The account of this beautiful moth is as follows:— 
“ The palpi are pointed at the tips ; the antennae simple, but rather stouter in the male ; 
the fore-wings are pale green, ornamented -with black and white markings, the black markings 
often forming something like a median band; the discoidal spots are distinct, and always white, 
with green centres bounded by black; the hind-wings are smoky black, with a darker 
discoidal spot, a lighter median transverse line, and a broad marginal white line ; the fringe 
is smoke-colour, with six white spots; the head and thorax have the same colour as the fore¬ 
wings ; the body is smoke-colour, slightly paler at the base. 
“ The head of the caterpillar is shining and of a greenish-grey colour, with a black cross 
resembling the letter X on the face, the body stout, cylindrical, and of a greenish-grey, some¬ 
times tinged with red ; the dorsal area is dark and interrupted by a series of lozenge-shaped 
markings of the same pale grey-green, which is the general ground colour'; there is a pale 
stripe in the region of the spiracles, bounded above by a somewhat darker stripe. It feeds on the 
oak (^Quercus Rohur), and is full-fed in June, when it descends the trunk, and entering the earth 
constructs an earthen cocoon a considerable depth beneath the smJace, and therein changes to 
a chrysalis, of which Mr. Greene says, ‘ It occurs in the utmost profusion. I have taken as 
many as twenty at one time. This wiU be one of the first chrysalids found by the beginner ; 
nothing can be easier ; merely turn up the earth and break it, and they will tumble out of their 
brittle cocoons in plenty.’ 
“ This extremely beautiful moth appears on the wing in October, and is very common in 
England and Scotland, also in the counties of Dublin and Wicklow in Ireland. The scientific 
name is Agriopis Aprilina.^’ 
In this pleasant and familiar style the reader -will gather particulars of many 
a garden ravager, and by means of the figures may recognize his enemies, and so 
