



52 BRITISH MOTHS 
. 
on the costa, beneath which is a white and red blotch, the margin of the wing being pale grey-brown, separated 
from the dise of the wing by a white submarginal streak. The hind wings are bright fulvous in the male, but 
grey in the female, with an ocellus in the centre similar to that of the fore wings, succeeded by a slender dark 
wavy line, then a pale wavy bar and a broad dark bar; the outer margin being dark-coloured, but separated 
from the disc of the wing by a white streak. 
The caterpillar is yellowish-green with black bands, having gold-coloured tubercles emitting pencils of short 
bristles. It is found in the autumn feeding upon willows, apple, heath, &c. Mr. Haworth gives the middle of 
May and beginning of August as the times of its appearance in the winged state. It is sufficiently common 
throughout England. 
The Continental Poatana (Arracus) Tau, Linnzeus, the type of Ochsenheimer’s genus Aglaia, (figured in 
Wood's Ind. Ent., t. 53, fig. 32,) has the wings of a testaceous colour, with a large somewhat violaceous eye 
in the middle of each, the centre being marked with a white T. It was recorded by Martyn, in his Aurelian’s 
Vade Mecum, as a British species, but no example is known. 
The remaining insects included in the present family (comprising the remaining species upon plate 10, and 
all those represented in plates 11 and 12,) constitute a natural division, and were united together by Ochsen- 
heimer under the names of Gastropacha, his typical species being Ilicifolia, Populifolia, Quercifolia, &c. This 
group has been much divided by Mr. Stephens, chiefly from the characters of the preparatory states. Six of 
his genera (namely, the six following, comprising the remainder of plate 10, except figures 15, 16, and 17, and 
the whole of plate 11,) have been reunited by Boisduval under the old generic name of Bombyx *, being however 
retained as sub-sections. The majority of these sub-sections, however, appear to me to be of equal value with 
the other groups—Odonestis, Dendrolimus, and Gastropacha. 

ERIOGASTER, Grermar. (DASYSOMA, Hisner.) 
Pens 

In this group the abdomen of the females is terminated by a thick woolly mass (whence both generic names, 
derived from the Greek). The body also is unusually stout, and the wings rather short and sub-diaphanous. 
The antennz are moderately bipectinated in the males, and serrated in the females, The palpi are short and 
three-jointed. The larve are cylindrical, each segment with two dorsal setigerous tubercles. They are 
gregarious, inhabiting a common web, and form a compact egg-like cocoon on the surface of the ground 
amongst leaves. 
SPECIES 1.—ERIOGASTER LANESTRIS. Puare X., Fie. 3, 4. 
Synonymes.—Phalena (Bombyx) lanestris, Linneus ; Donovan, Eriogaster lanestris, Germar ; Stephens ; Wood, Ind. Ent., t. 6, 
vol. 6, pl. 310; Albin, pl. 19, fig. 26 a—d; Wilkes, pl. 53; Harris, | f. 47. 
Aurelian, pl. 25, fig. k—o. Dasysoma lanestris, Hiibner, Verz. bek. Schm, 
This pretty species varies from 11 to 14 inches in the expansion of the fore wings, which are of a reddish- 
brown colour, with a distinct patch of white at the base, a smaller one in the middle ; half way between which 

* The name Bombyx ought to be retained as the generic name of the silk-worm moth. The French, however, designate it by the name 
of Sericaria. 

