Pl. 82.
Clouded Buff Moth, 1 male; 2 female.
Garden Tiger Moth, 3 male; 4 female.

Pl. 83.
Clouded Buff Moth.
Eggs natural size and enlarged; caterpillar.

Besides aberration, such as that referred to above, curious abnormal specimens occur in the breeding cage from time to time, but these are often more or less deformed. It is, perhaps, remarkable, that so few "good things" in the way of varieties are obtained from collected caterpillars, even when these are reared by hundreds. Possibly, if the breeder started operations with a stock of eggs from unusually pale or unusually dark females, and then reserving only the lightest or the darkest, as required, of each generation to continue the experiment, some interesting light or dark "strains" might result in course of time. The objection to this is that before the desired result was obtained the stock might be weakened by "inbreeding," and the moths consequently deformed. If, however, the same line of experiment were conducted by several people, each living in a different part of the country, and with stock selected from the products of his own locality, eggs, caterpillars, or chrysalids might be exchanged, say, after the second year, and in this way the effect of "inbreeding" would be minimized.

The caterpillar, generally known as the "Woolly Bear," is not at all an uncommon object throughout the country, and is, perhaps, even more often noticed in gardens, including those of suburban London. The figures of the early stages of this moth, on Plate [85], are all from material obtained in my own small garden.

The foliage of pretty well all low plants, and tall ones, such as the hollyhock and sunflower, too, seem to be equally acceptable to this larva. It is not often seen before hibernation, but in the early days of spring it will be noticed sunning itself on walls and fences that have a good crop of nettles, dock, or other weeds at their base or around them; or it may be searched for on the undersides of dock, etc. Mr. Frohawk records these caterpillars as swarming from mid-May to mid-June, 1904, in the Scilly Isles. He states that they occurred in such myriads that no vegetation escaped them, and that they devoured anything from stonecrop to the foliage of shrubs of various kinds. Every path and roadway was dotted all over with their crushed bodies.

In the open the moth is on the wing in July and sometimes in August. When kept indoors the caterpillars, or at least some of them, will feed up quickly and attain the moth state in September or October.

The species is distributed over the whole of Europe, except Andalusia, Sicily, and the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, and its range extends through Asia to Amurland, Corea, and Japan.