The distribution abroad extends over Central and Northern Europe, through South Russia to Amurland.
The Buff Ermine (Spilosoma lubricipeda).
This species is now known by the English name of the Buff Ermine, but the names bestowed upon it by some ancient writers were perhaps hardly more suitable. Thus Wilkes in 1773 called it the "Spotted Buff Moth," and Harris five years later dubbed it the "Cream-dot Stripe." The ground colour is generally some shade of buff, in the paler specimens merging into cream, and in the darker to yellowish ochre. In the matter of black marking the range of variation is extensive. The specimens figured on Plate [77] illustrate something of this variation, both as regards colouring and marking. The females are, as a rule, paler than the males, but occasionally examples
of the latter sex are quite as pale as any female. Figures 7 and 8 represent var. zatima, Cramer. Originally this form was only known to occur in Heligoland. The same form, or a modification of it, was described by Haworth as radiata, from a Yorkshire specimen. Then, in 1837, specimens of the variety were reared with the normal form of the species from caterpillars obtained at Saltfleet in Lincolnshire; and subsequently a few more examples were reported from the last named county, and elsewhere. In 1891 a specimen of var. zatima emerged from an assortment of chrysalids sent to Mr. Harrison of Barnsley from a London correspondent. This particular specimen was of the female sex, and it paired with a male which was also an aberration, but not of the zatima form. Some of the offspring resulting from this union were of the female parent form, others favoured the male parent, and others again were intermediate. In the course of a few generations almost entire broods of the zatima variety were obtained. Allowing the sexes of zatima to mate with those of more or less ordinary lubricipeda, the late Mr. W. H. Tugwell obtained many very interesting aberrations, one of which he named var. eboraci, and another fasciata. The zatima form and its various modifications have now been reared by entomologists all over the country, and presumably directly or indirectly from the original Barnsley stock. In Yorkshire especially the race has been improved; the specimens are larger and darker, and there is a tendency towards the almost entirely black form known as var. deschangei.
The pale whitish green eggs are laid in batches on leaves, sometimes high up on birch trees, or virginia creeper, but more usually on the foliage of low growing plants; it is often common in gardens. At first the caterpillar is tinged with yellowish, but it afterwards becomes greyish, and finally brownish. When full grown the hairs, with which the body is clothed, are brown; there is a yellowish or whitish grey stripe along each side, and an obscure somewhat reddish
tinted line down the middle of the back. Head glossy brown.
The glossy reddish-brown chrysalis is enclosed in a dingy coloured web-like cocoon, which is spun up among leaves or litter on the ground. Mr. R. Adkin found some of these cocoons spun up between the folds of an old brown blanket used as a covering for a rabbit hutch in winter. The moth emerges in June. Occasionally, in confinement, specimens will leave the chrysalis in the autumn instead of passing the winter therein, as they more usually do (Plate [76]).
A common and often abundant species over the greater part of the British Isles. Its range abroad extends through Central and Northern Europe, South Russia, and Tartary to Amurland, Corea, and West China.
The Muslin (Diaphora mendica).
The early British authors knew this moth as the "Spotted Muslin" or "Seven Spot Ermine" (Harris, 1778). The male is dark brown or blackish, with a few usually obscure black dots on each wing. The female is silky white, with more clearly defined, and often more numerous, black dots (Plate [75], Figs. 4-6). On Plate [78] will be found figures of the rarer and more extreme aberrations of the female. Those represented by Figs. 3, 4, 6, 7, were reared some years ago by Mr. G. T. Porritt, of Huddersfield, who at the same time obtained a number of other interesting intermediate examples ("Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond.," 1889, p. 441, Pl. 14). Variation in the other direction is towards the complete suppression of the black dots; and I have seen specimens with only one such dot on each wing.