THE FEATHERED EAR (_Pachetra leucophæa_).
Stephens, in 1829, figured one of two specimens of this species said to have been taken near Bristol in 1816, a part of England { 258} from which no other specimen has ever been recorded so far as I am aware. In June, 1855, the late Mr. S. Stevens obtained a few specimens at sugar, at Mickleham, Surrey. Between the year last mentioned and 1894 five other specimens have been recorded from the same county, these are Redhill (W. R. Jeffrey), Boxhill (G. Elisha, a pair, and B. A. Bower), Reigate (R. Adkin). In Kent, specimens have been found in the Folkestone and Tunbridge districts, but the chalk downs between Ashford and Wye appear to be the headquarters of the insect in Britain.
A portrait of a male specimen will be found on Plate 128, Fig. 1, but the ground colour is much whiter in the majority of British specimens.
According to Dr. Chapman, the caterpillar varies from a nearly uniform nankeen-yellow with the markings only indicated, to a handsome larva with distinct black stripes. There is a pale dorsal line, quite narrow; thence to the black spiracles is divided into three longitudinal stripes, a dark dorsal, a dark (but less dark) lower one and a pale intermediate. In all these the ground colour is the same, nankeen-yellow, and the darker areas depend on the greater or less darkness of fine black mottlings, generally in fine wavy streaks running more or less longitudinally. The head is rather brown than yellow, mottled in a honey-comb pattern, with some black marking about the mouth parts. It feeds at night from July to March on various grasses, but seems to prefer _Poa annua_, and _P. nemoralis_. Dr. Chapman reared some of these caterpillars by keeping each individual in a separate glass jar and supplying it at frequent intervals with a fresh tuft of _Poa annua_. The moth is out from May to July, and hides during the day among the tufts of grass on chalk hills. It comes freely to sugar, and has been taken at privet blossom.
THE SILVER CLOUD (_Xylomania conspicillaris_).
Three forms of this species occur with us. In that represented on Plate 128, Fig. 4, the fore wings are almost entirely { 259} blackish. Another has a larger portion of the inner marginal area ochreous brown, or whitish, ab. _melaleuca_, Vieweg; a third form, and the least frequent, may be described as pale ochreous brown with darker mottling on the basal half, and black central markings representing a broken streak from the base of the wing to the outer margin, in this form the pale outlined stigmata are fairly distinct, and there is a blackish shade between them extending from the front to the inner margin. From chrysalids obtained by digging under oak and elm trees in a private park several miles from Taunton, Somerset, Mr. H. Doidge (1901) reared moths and obtained eggs which were laid in a batch on the covering of the cage in which the female was placed with a growing plant of bird's-foot trefoil. The eggs hatched on May 31, ten days after they were laid. The young caterpillars were purplish grey, but after feeding on the yellow flowers they assumed the same colour. "After finishing the flowers they commenced on the leaves, by which time they were a pale green colour, with a yellow spiracular stripe, and were fond of resting by day on the stems of the plant. As they approached the final stage, the green became shaded with brown and black," and then resembled the ripening seed pods. They were afterwards supplied with blackthorn, and did not object to the change of food. They also ate dock (sparingly), and _Trifolium minus_. "About July 8 they began to go under ground to pupate. The pupæ, which were of a dark reddish-brown colour, and somewhat obese and blunt, being enclosed in a very compact and brittle earthy cocoon" (Doidge).