This caterpillar is blue-brown above, with a black stripe on each side, and a row of orange spots beneath them. It is full-fed about midsummer, and the perfect insect appears at the end of the spring of the succeeding year.

Our last example of this large family is the Marsh Carpet ( Cidaria sagittata), one of our most local insects.

The upper wings of this pretty Moth are delicate fawn colour, on which are two bold patches of very dark olive-brown edged with white, one occupying the base and the other the middle of the wing. The latter runs out into a sharp angle towards the hind margin, and assumes a shape which has been fancifully thought to resemble an arrow-head. The specific name of scigittaria has been given to the insect in consequence of this supposed resemblance. The lower wings are comparatively pale and without mucli marking.

Tlie larva feeds upon the -r\e {Thalictrum jiavum),

a plant which grows only in places which are constantly wet,

such as the ditches of water-meadows and fen districts. For this reason the Moth has received its popular name of Marsh Carpet. The fen district of Cambridge is the only locality in which this Moth has been known to occur in England.

The caterpillar feeds mostly on the seeds of the meadowrue, hut will at a pinch eat the leaves or panicles of other plants belonging to the same genus. It is a singularly pretty caterpillar and very curiously shaped. Each of the segments, from the fifth to the tenth inclusive, is developed above into a sort of hump, and at the side into a lobe or flap, which contains the spiracle. The top of each hump is deep velvety olive-green, and the spaces between them are in some specimens bright leafgreen, and in others rose-coloured, a velvet-black edge throwing out these colours in a most beautiful manner.

This lovely caterpillar finishes its feeding towards the middle of autumn, and generally spins a web among the flowers of the food-plant, in which it undergoes its changes. Sometimes, however, it descends to the ground, and there takes the pupal form. The perfect insect appears in summer, but can only be found by those who know where to look for it, as it has hitherto been only found in one county of England.

Theie are many of the Moths which are popularly termed ‘ Carpets.’ This name is given to them because the beautiful patterns of their wings are thought to have some resemblance to those of carpets. I only wish that the patterns of carpets resembled those of the wings.

The family of the Eubolidse is represented in this work by the Moth which is appropriately termed the Streak {Chesias spartiatcij, and is drawn on Woodcut LI. Fig. 4.

The insect is easily recognised by the peculiarity from which It derives its name, viz. the white streak which runs nearly from base to tip of the light brown wings. There is a slight wh.te line that runs just inside the hind margin, and three rather indistinct darker oval marks, one above the streak and the other two below it. A sort of silky or satiny sheen glosses the surface of the upper wings. The lower wings are much paler than the upper, and the whole body is dark greyish

bro-wn with a silky gloss. Tlie larva feeds on the common Broom {Spartium scoparia) whence its specific title of epartiata. Tlie Moth appears in September.

The last of the GreometrEe scarcely looks as if it belonged to that group. This is the common CniMNEY-SwEEPER {Tanagra chcerophyllata), which is represented on Woodcut LI. Fig. 5.

As may be inferred from its popular name, the colour of this Moth is sooty-black. The fringe is grey, except at the tip of the upper wings, where it is snowy-white. The larva is rather a pretty one, being dark green with a few lines of olivegreen and light green. The spiracles are red. It feeds on the common earth-nut, or pig-nut {Bunium fiexuosum) and is fullfed at the beginning of June, when it descends into the earth and changes to the pupal state. At the end of that month it assumes its perfect form, and in many localities appears in great numbers.

CHAPTER IV.

rSEUDO-BOMBYCES, imEPANlfLYE, AND NOCTURE.

The two first of these groups are gathered by Mr. Newman into one group, which are termed Cuspidates, because the tail of the larva mostly ends in a cusp or point. Some of the strangest caterpillars in the world belong to this group, and we have in sober England a number of Cuspidate larvae which may rival the most wonderful productions of the tropics for beauty of colour and strangeness of form, the latter being in many cases actually grotesque.

The Pseudo-Bombyces are so called because the Moths look at first sight as if they belonged to the true Bombyces. The structure and habits of the caterpillar, however, show that these Moths are very rightly placed in a separate group.

The first family is the Dicranuridte, so called on account of the structui-e of the larva. The name is formed from two Greek words, signifying Double-tailed, and is given to these insects because the tail of the larva is very deeply cleft, so as, in fact, to resemble two distinct tails.

The first of these insects is the common Puss Moth ( Dicranura vinula), which is repi-esented on Plate XV. Fig. 4.

This insect affords another example of the effect which can be got out of simple black and white. The upper wings are soft greyish-white and rounded at the tips, and have a peculiar softness in their general aspect. Most of the larger nervures are without scales, and show themselves con.spicuously, but at the branches they are thickly covered with black scales. ’ The wings are covered with bold markings in black and dark grev as seen in the illustration. The lower wings are white at the base, deepening to blackish grey towards the margin, and have a few dark spots on the fringe. The large thorax is covered ^ with long, soft down of a snowy-white colour, diversified wiL

eight very black spots, so that it strongly reminds the observer of minever. The head is also white, and is held so much under the thorax that, when the creature is at rest, the head is quite invisible, and nothing can be seen but the ends of the antennae, which are laid along either side of the thorax.

The caterpillar of this pretty Moth affords a singular example of grotesque form and beautiful colouring. The head is flat, and, when the creature is at rest, is drawn back into the second segment. The fourth segment is produced into a large and pointed hump, and from the ninth segment the body tapers to the end. Here are developed two rough horn-like projections, from each of which can be protruded a horny pink filament, which seems to be employed as a weapon. It has been suggested that these appendages are used for the purpose of away ichneumon-flies when they settle on the body in driving the hope of depositing their eggs. Whether this theory be correct or not is undetermined, but the caterpillar certainly does protrude them when irritated. The larva has another weapon, if it may be so called. Below the head there is a transverse slit about the sixth of an inch in length. M hen the creature is alarmed or angered, Irom this apertuie is ejected a fluid of an acrid character, which may probably have injurious or deterrent effect upon the enenues of the some Puss Moth larva.

The colour of this caterpillar is singularly beautiful — leafgreen on the sides and whitish above, with some stripes of Between these two colours a white stripe purple-brown. runs from the side of the head to the tip of the hump, and then passes to the base of the double tail. The stripes are so arranged that when the larva is viewed from above, they appear like the capital letter X. In some specimens, something not in all, there is a large purple patch on the eighth though segment.

This larva feeds both on the willow and poplar, and, being reared throughout its changes. When very hardy, is easily place about the end of May, it leaves its full-fed, which takes down the trunk of the tree, and creeps^ into some food, crawls of the bark. In this lefuge it forms a

convenient crevice made of small chips of the bark fastened together with cocoon strength. The cocoon, indeed, is mostly

silk, and of wonderful

constructed of silk, the bark chips being merely added to it in order to make it agree in appearance with the trunk of the tree. 3Ioisture does not soften this silken secretion, though air hardens it, and the consequence is that after exposure to the atmosphere, the cocoon becomes as hard as if made of horn, so that the inmate is safe from nearly all enemies ; while the exact similitude between the surface of the cocoon and the bark of the tree renders it almost ineapable of discovery.

A very good specimen of this cocoon in my collection was discovered by me quite accidentally, and so precisely did it resemble the bark of the tree that I was obliged to keep my finger on the spot while I opened my knife, fearing that if I once lost the exact place I should never find it again. If the larva be kept in captivity, and deprived of material from which the wood-chips of the cocoon are formed, it is obliged to form its habitation entirely of silk, and thus enables the observer to see the construction of this remarkable cocoon. Though formed of silk, it is not made like that of the silkworm Moth, of a thread which is wound into an oval shape. No thread is visible, but the whole cocoon looks (and feels) as if it were made from very thin horn, so translucent that the form of the inmate can easily be seen through it. I imagine that, although the cocoon is spun like that of the silkworm and other Moths, the silk does not harden immediately it comes in contact with the atmosphere, so that the whole mass becomes fused together, and the individuality of the thread is thereby lost. I have reared many of these larvae, and found that, although they would always use portions of their food-plant in the construction of the cocoon, they were really quite independent of it, and did not suffer in any way by being obliged to form their dwelling entirely of silk.

It is always easy to force a Puss Moth larva to form such a cocoon. When it is full-fed it loses the brilliancy of its colours, a brownish hue comes over its body, and it looks as if it were about to die. It should then be removed from its foodplant, and placed in the glass vessel in which the cocoon is to be preserved for the collection. After the cocoon is fully formed the vessel should be subjected to the vapour of bruised laurel leaves long enough to kill the pupa, and the dead n n insect

should then he carefully dried in an oven, and the case ■ rendered air-tight.

The caterpillar is full-fed about midsummer, and, passing the winter in its chrysalis state, is developed into the Moth in . the following June. LII

Cerura fvircula. 2. Stauropus fagi. 3. Notodcmta dromedarius. a. Stauropus, larva. 6. Notodonta, larva.

Next in order comes the Moth which, as the larva feeds on and the insect belongs to the same genus as the Puss sallow Moth, but is much smaller, is popularly termed the Sallow Moth {Dicranura or Cerura furcula). This insect is Kitten on Woodcut LII. Fig. 1. The specific name of represented a little fork, and is given to the insect m furcula signifies of the shape of the larva, which is terminated by consequence in their outline with that of two diverging horns, continuous from it like the horn of a Hawk the body, and not projecting Moth larva.

Page 82 of 117