Pl. 21.
1.Humming-bird Hawk-moth.
2.Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth, male; 3 female.
4.Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk-moth, male; 5 female.

The Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth (Hemaris fuciformis).

We have but two kinds of Bee Hawk-moths in our islands, and the present species (Plate [21], Figs. 2, 3) is easily recognized by the broad reddish brown borders of the wings and especially those on the front pair, which also have a black bar at the end of the cell. When freshly emerged the wings are not clear and transparent, but covered with greenish-grey scales, which are so loosely attached that they are lost after the moth's first flight.

The egg is bright green, and is laid on the underside of a leaf of honeysuckle. When very young the caterpillar is yellowish white, but when full grown (Plate [20], Fig. 2) it is whitish green on the back, green on the sides, and reddish brown beneath. Along the middle of the back there is a darker, much interrupted, green line and a yellow line on each side of it; the spiracles are reddish, the head is dark green, and the horn reddish brown merging into violet at the base, and brown at the tip. Sometimes there are blotches of reddish brown on the sides. When quite mature and ready to assume the chrysalis stage the caterpillar changes in colour to purplish brown. At all times it is difficult to detect, as its colour and markings agree so well with the stems, stalks, and leaves of the food plant. If a leaf of honeysuckle having round holes on each side of the midrib be noticed, examination of the underside of that leaf may reveal a young caterpillar of this species.

The common honeysuckle, or woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum) is the usual food, but in confinement the caterpillars will eat the foliage of the cultivated kinds of Lonicera, and, it is stated, even snowberry (Symphoricarpus racemosus). In rearing it will, however, be safer to supply them with the ordinary food wherever this is to be obtained. July and August are the months in which to look for them. The chrysalis is blackish brown, the skin is rather roughened, and the ring divisions are paler brown. It is protected by a silken cocoon, the interior of which is smooth, and the exterior coated with earth, etc.

From mid-May to mid-June in average years, the moth is on the wing. The blossoms of the rhododendron are its favourite attraction, and the best time to see it at these flowers is on a nice sunny morning between ten o'clock and midday. The flowers of the bugle (Ajuga reptans) growing in meadows, wood-ridings, on railway banks or hedgerows, are hardly less attractive, but these are less easily worked than the higher shrubs. The collector has simply to stand before the latter and await the arrival of the active Bee Hawks. Among other flowers that this moth has been observed to visit are those of its own food plant; ragged robins (Lychnis flos-cuculi), ground ivy (Nepeta glechoma), and also blue-bell and primrose.

The species is widely distributed and locally common throughout England, but its northern range does not extend apparently beyond Yorkshire. According to Kane it is absent from Ireland; and the reports of odd specimens from Scotland are probably erroneous. Its distribution abroad extends over Europe, except the most northern parts, a large portion of northern and central Asia, and southwards to North Africa.

Moses Harris, it may be mentioned, figured this moth in 1775 as "The Clear-winged Humming-bird Sphinx."