The caterpillar is pinkish grey-brown, with three paler lines and a series of purplish diamonds along the back; the sides are mottled with purplish brown above the black spiracles, and striped with ochreous grey below them. According to Buckler, whose description is here adapted, the four pale raised dots circled with dark brown, placed within the dark marks on the back of each ring, serve to distinguish this caterpillar from its
allies. It feeds on the seeds of wych-elm, and may be beaten or jarred from the branches in April and May. The moth is out in the autumn.
The Pale-lemon Sallow (Mellinia (Xanthia) ocellaris).
Although sparsely marked yellowish examples of the last species have been mistaken for the present one, the true M. ocellaris was not known to occur in Britain until 1893, when three specimens were taken at Wimbledon and Twickenham. In 1894 a specimen was recorded from Bognor in Sussex, and another in West Dulwich. The following year one specimen was taken at Richmond, Surrey, and one at Ipswich, Suffolk. Three specimens were obtained at sugar in 1899, and five others in 1900, in a locality in North Kent. Odd specimens have also been noted as follows:—Suffolk, Beccles (1898), Woodbridge (1899); West Norfolk (1904 and 1906); Cambridge (1907). The caterpillar, which is ochreous grey with black dots, feeds on poplar, and is stated by one continental author to live in the buds and catkins when young, and afterwards on low plants. So far, it has not been detected in England.
A German specimen of the moth is depicted on Plate [10], Fig. 11. From the last species this one is easily separated by the more pointed fore wings, by the white dot at lower end of the reniform stigma, and by the different shaped cross lines.
The moth has been taken at sugar or light in September and October.
The Orange Upper-wing (Xantholeuca (Hoporina) croceago).
This species is shown in its typical form on Plate [10], Fig. 12. Occasionally a dull reddish-brown form (ab. latericolor, Raynor) occurs, of which I some years ago reared several examples,
from eggs laid by a female taken at sallow in Darenth Wood, Kent.
The caterpillar (Plate [6], Fig. 1) is pale ochreous brown, inclining to orange, finely freckled with brown, and with brown V-marks on the back of rings 4 to 11; the line along the middle of the back is pale yellow, and there are two pale yellow spots on ring 11; head, pale brown, freckled with darker brown, and sometimes rosy tinged. It feeds on oak, and may be found in May and June.