species being uncommon on the Continent. Supposing the purchaser to be fastidious as to bis collection being purely British, he may obtain a warranty with any individual specimen he is selecting, by paying twenty or thirty shillings additional. The specimen then becomes “ British,” just as a wealthy tradesman becomes an esquire by paying for armorial bearings which some ingenious manufacturer professes to find in Herald’s College. I prefer dispensing with warranty, as too expensive a luxury.’

A really genuine British specimen is now before me. It was caught by a young lady close to my house at Belvedere, Kent, on Sept. 11, 1871, and brought to me while the wings were still flexible.

There are only three British species of this beautiful family. Two have been described, and the third is the handsomest of them all. This is the Ceimson Tiger ( Gallimorjpha Dominula), which, fortunately for entomologists, is not very scarce, though it is decidedly local. The upper wings are dark olive-brown, with a gloss of the richest and deepest green, and on them are a number of bold white spots, variable in number and size, but always tending to orange towards the middle of the wing. The lower wings are crimson, with several black patches.

The caterpillar of this lovely Moth is blue-black, with a rather broad yellow stripe down the middle of the back, and a narrow stripe on either side. It feeds on the common Hound’stongue (^Gynoglossum officinale), which grows among valleys and on road-sides. Wherever this plant, with its downy, darkgreen leaves and crimson flower, grows in plenty, there is sure to be a favourable locality for the caterpillar of the Crimson Tiger, if not for the Moth itself.

Another family now comes before us — the Cheloiiidae, popularly known as Tiger-Moths. They have the antennee more or less deeply fringed in the male, and the caterpillar is very hairy, coiling itself into a ring when alarmed. Before it changes into the pupal state, it spins a very loose web mixed profusely with its hairs.

The best known of these insects is shown on Plate XV. Fig. 1, and may be reckoned as the type of the family. It is the Common Tiger-Moth (Chdonia or Arctia caja), so called

on accoimi of the bold cream and black markings of its. upper wings. The lower wings are red, with some large black spots glossed with bine. The body is red, barred with black. This is a most variable insect, the number, size, shape, and tint differing in a most bewildering manner. But however variable it may be, there is never any possibility of mistaking it.

It is one of the commonest of British insects, and towards the end of summer the Moth is quite plentiful. It is wonderfully quick of foot, and, as it runs with closed wings among the herbage, has a most curious resemblance to a small mouse.

The larva is covered with long, brown, stiff hairs, and is popularly known by the name of the Woolly Bear. It feeds principally on the common dead nettle, but is not in the least particular as to its food, and, being very hardy, is an admirable subject for experiments in Moth-breeding. Personally I have a sort of respect for this larva, as being the first caterpillar that I ever dissected, and consequently the first creature that let me into the secrets of insect anatomy. When full-fed, the caterpillar spins a slight hammock, woven so loosely that the form of the enclosed pupa can be seen through its meshes, and in this hammock it remains until the perfect insect is developed.

Passing by one or two well-known insects for which we have no space, such as the Ermines, the Brown-tail, the G-olden-tail, the Gripsy, we come to the Black Arches {Liparis monacha), the female of which is shown on Woodcut XLVII. Fig. 2. In the whole of this family white is the prevailing colour, if colour it can be termed, though in several instances the female is nearly white, while the male has some more pronounced hue. In the preliminary stages of existence, not only the larvas but the pupfe are covered with hair.

The Black Arches Moth derives its popular name from the peculiar colouring of the wings. The upper wings are white, and covered with a vast number of black, arch-like marks, rather variable in size. In some specimens, for example, the markings are quite narrow, and look as if they had been drawn with a very fine camel’s-hair brush on a satiny-white ground. In others, the marks are so broad that hlack seems to be the prevailing colour, and that the title of White Arches would he really the most appropriate one. The male is much smaller

than the female, and his colours, though brighter and more compressed, are sufficiently similar to those of the female to show that they both belong to one species. Moreover, his antennae are deeply and doubly feathered, and his body is pink, with three rows of black spots on it over the middle, and one on either side.

I* ryKJera bucephala. 2, Liparis or Psiliira monacha. 3. Orpyia anfciqtia., male. 4. Orgj ia antiqua, female. a. Pygmra bncephala. larva. b. Orgjia antiqua, larva.

The larva is one of the many oak-feeders, and the perfect insect appears in the autumn. Those who wish for good specimens of this pretty Moth ought to rear it from the caterpillar, which can be obtained in full condition towards the end of June, by beating the oak, the birch, and one or two other trees.

Next comes that interesting insect, the common VArouRER Moth {Orgyia antiqua), the male of which is represented on Woodcut XLVir. Fim O 3.

Tills is rather a pretty Moth, though the colours are anything but brilliant. The wings are warm chestnut, tlie upper pair having some waved transverse marks, as shown in the illustration, and a bold, nearly semilunar white spot at the anal angle.

He is very common, and is one of the few Lepidoptera — except perhaps the Clothes-Moth, which is more plentiful than desired — that is very common in London, and may be found even in the dingiest and smokiest portions, provided that trees or shrubs grow in it. I should think that if even Leicester Square could produce a tree, it would also produce the Yapourer Moth. He is one of the day-flying moths, and seems to revel in the blazing sunbeams, flitting about with rapid, and apparently uncertain wing, upon the hottest days of summer.

There is, however, nothing uncertain about his flight, for he has a very definite object, namely, to seek a mate. Considering the kind of creature she is, and her peculiar habits, one is led to marvel, in the first place, how the active, prettilycoloured male Yapourer can find anything attractive in the female, who is about as plain — not to say, plebeian — an insect as can well be imagined. A figure of the female is given on Woodcut XLYII. Fig. 4, and the reader will see that a less attractive and more commonplace creatnre can hardly be seen. She has no wings to speak of, these organs being quite undeveloped and simply rudimentary, so that she could not fly one single inch. Her body is large, thick, soft, and covered with grey down, slightly darker at the edge of each segment.

This curious creature never wanders from the spot where she happens to have passed into the pupal state. Like the male, she has, when a full-fed caterpillar, spun a silken web, within which she has undergone her transformation.

The male has done the same, but when he has assumed the perfect form, he shakes out his pretty wings, takes to the air, and gaily sets out, like ‘ Cselebs,’ in search of a wife. She, on the other hand, never travels at all. Where she was reared, there she lives, there she is mated, there she provides a fresh brood, and there she dies, fulfilling the duties of her life within very narrow bounds. Her eggs are laid upon the silken web which she herself spun as a caterpillar, and from those eggs aie hatched a brood of tiny larva?, each of which is intended to follow in the track of its parents.

So plentiful are these egg-groups that, were it not for the presence of sundry little birds, which find much of their winter’s nourishment in the eggs of various Lepidoptera, we sliould be soon overrun with Vapourer Moths, and our trees and hedges would suffer sadly. The female moths themselves, being utterly unable to escape, and not seeming able even to crawl beyond the limits of the pupal web, also fall victims to the birds in no small number.

The caterpillar is shown at Fig. h of the same Woodcut, and is a very pretty one. Its colours are exceedingly variable, but it is always furnished with a brush-like tuft of yellow hairs on the back of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth segments, two long black tufts on the second segment, directed forwards, and a single similar tuft on the last segment but one, directed backwards. There is scarcely a tree or shrub on which this strange-looking caterpillar will not feed.

On Plate XV. Fig. 2 is seen the male Oak-egg ar Moth (Bomhyx or Lasiocampa quercus). This well-known insect belongs to another family, the Bombycidse, in which the caterpillars are mostly hairy, the pupa smooth, and the perfect insect large and stout-bodied, and coloured with various shades of brovui or grey. The smooth pupa at once distinguishes this insect from the last.

Although the colours of this insect are not brilliant, the Moth is a very handsome one, the simple colouring of its wings being well contrasted. The male has the wings rich warm I so yellowish handsome, band. the colour Bather being towards mostly the yellow base of the disc there is a chestnut, and across each of them is drawn a slightly waved white spot very clearly marked. His antennee are deeply and doubly feathered. The female is much larger, but not nearly with the band pale and undefined.

The chief interest of this moth lies in its lu-eparatory stages, ^le caterpillar is a very fine one, and remarkable for its chano-e in appearance when it bends its body. The ground colour of I this larva is deep velvety-black, very thickly covered with rich i brown hairs. When the caterpillar is straight it appears to be ^ uniformly brown, but when it curves the body, the velvet-black appears between the segments and gives a very bold and effec-

tive appearance to the hitlierto plain caterpillar. There are other marks, bnt these velvet rings are amply sufficient for identification.

It is very plentiful in some places, and though it is a very geneial feeder, eating almost every non-poisonous herb or leaf tliat may be given to it, the larva has fancies of its own and prefers one place to another, though apparently botli localities are exactly alike in every respect. There was, for example, a portion of a hedge, about half a mile in length, to which I always resorted when in want of an Oak-eggar caterpillar. I generally used the sweep-net for this purpose, passing it very gently through the herbage, and was sure to be rewarded with success.

This caterpillar, especially when nearly full-grown, is a troublesome being in a collecting-box, and I do not knoAV of any which has a more unpleasant knack of pushing its way out of the box whenever the lid is removed for the admission of a new inmate. In fact, unless the collector should be provided with a box such as has been described on page 420, he will find that the Oak-eggar caterpillars are greatly trying to the temper, and may perchance get themselves crushed while trying to make their escape.

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