have been reared during the past year or two. Unfortunately the caterpillar is much infested by parasites, and comparatively few escape attack. Notes on the life history of this moth, by the Hon. N. Charles Rothschild, Mr. Eustace Bankes, and Dr. Chapman, are published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London for 1906 (Part IV., pp. 471-482).
Most of the known localities for the species are in Kent, but it has also been found in Surrey, Dorset, Gloucester, Hertfordshire (Tring district), and Northamptonshire (Oundle). Possibly it will be discovered in other parts of the country. I am indebted to Mr. L. W. Newman, of Bexley, for the specimen figured on Plate [1], Fig. 1. For the caterpillar mine in stem of Viburnum (Plate [156], Figs. 2, 2a) my thanks are due to Mr. Rayward, who kindly sent me a living pupa, from which the moth duly emerged, but, I regret to add, escaped from the box in which the stick containing the chrysalis was kept.
Newman, in 1833, described this species as Trochilium allantiformis, and in 1842 it was figured by Westwood and Humphreys as T. andreniforme. It is distinguished from Sesia tipuliformis by the two yellow belts of the body (the first sometimes indistinct) and the orange-yellow tuft in the blue-black tail; on the underside of the body there is a broad yellow band on the fourth ring, sometimes extending to the fifth and sixth.
Currant Clearwing (Sesia tipuliformis).
In this species the body is narrowly belted with yellow, usually four belts in the male and three in the female; the tail tuft is black in both sexes. The outer marginal border of the fore wings has a bronzy tinge, due to orange patches between the veins. (Plate [154], Figs. 5 ♂, 6 ♀.)
The caterpillar lives in the stems and shoots of black and red currant bushes; it feeds on the pith, and works its way downwards. When full grown, about May, it gnaws an outlet to the
side of the stem, but does not penetrate the outer skin, although it reduces this to a very thin layer, through which the reddish brown chrysalis is able to force itself when the moth is ready to emerge. A figure of the caterpillar will be found on Plate [156], Fig. 1; the chrysalis protruding from currant stem (Fig. 1a) is from a photo by Mr. H. Main. In June or July, the moths are not infrequently seen on leaves of shrubs in gardens where there are currant bushes in or around such gardens, but the foliage of the food plant is a favourite resting place.
Generally distributed throughout England, the range extending into Wales, and South Scotland, but is apparently rare in these countries and also in some of the northern counties of England. Kane states that the species is common near Dublin, and is probably widely distributed in Ireland.
This species seems to have been introduced into North America, where its caterpillar is known as the "currant borer," and, as in England, is regarded with little favour by bush-fruit growers.