| ||||
| 2 Pl. 82. | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| 14. Pretty Chalk Carpet. |
| ||||||
| 2 Pl. 83. | ||||||
| ||||||
|
On the fore wings the dark, slender and wavy cross lines are more distinct in some specimens than in others, and occasionally the blackish blotch on the front margin is traversed by a white line, sometimes by two lines.
The caterpillar is pale ochreous brown, with three darker brown lines along the back, the central one slender, spotted with black on the middle rings; usual dots, black, encircled with white; head, marked with a reddish brown triangle. It feeds on Clematis in August and September.
Distribution of the species abroad extends to Amurland, and in Japan, Corea, and China it is represented by the darker inquinata, Butler.
The Rivulet (Perizoma affinitata).
The whitish band crossing the brownish fore wings is generally fairly wide, sometimes broad, but occasionally it is very narrow; the reduction in width is mainly the result of brownish suffusion of the outer half of the band, leaving the inner half white. Kane mentions a smoky form from Co. Derry, in which the band is absent, and refers this to ab. unicolorata, Gregson. In a specimen from Sligo in my series, the band is tinged with brownish throughout. The hind wings are usually smoky brown, with a paler central band, but in some specimens, referable to ab. turbaria, Stephens, the basal two-thirds are whitish. The moths also vary in size (Plate [83], Figs. 1 and 2).
The caterpillar is pinkish-ochreous inclining to brown; three pinkish lines along the back, and a similar line along the blackish spiracles; a dark plate on the first and last rings. It feeds in the capsules, on the seeds, of red campion (Lychnis