Fiery Clearwing (Sesia chrysidiformis).
The orange red colour on the fore wings, and of the tail tuft, at once distinguish this species (Plate [155], Figs. 8 ♂, 9 ♀) from either of its British allies. The blackish body has two pale-yellow belts, but in the male the lower one is often double. As a rule, the body of the female is stouter than that of the male, but the bodies of some males appear quite as thick as those of the females, and the true sex is only disclosed by the ciliated antennæ, which is a character of the male alone.
The caterpillar feeds on the roots of dock and sorrel, and it is full grown about May. In June and July the moth is on the wing and flies in the sunshine, about noon, over the food plants.
The species occurs not uncommonly in the Warren at Folkestone, Kent. This locality, well known to entomologists, is a long stretch of rough broken ground lying between the railway
and the sea; and is probably the only spot in the British Isles where the Fiery Clearwing is almost certain to be found, either in its early or its perfect stage, at the proper season. The moth has been recorded from Eastbourne, Sussex (1874), and from the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire (1902).
HEPIALIDÆ.
Of the twenty-two Palæarctic species belonging to this family, nine appear to occur in Europe, and the range of five of these extends to the British Isles.
In some of the more recent systems of classification, this family is relegated to almost the bottom of the scheme, and therefore occupies a much lower place than do the bulk of the families comprised in the old style "Micro-Lepidoptera." As, however, these insects, commonly called "Swifts," have long received the attention of collectors, and in collections usually occupy a position among the so-called "Bombyces," they have been included in the present volume.
Ghost Moth (Hepialus humuli).
On Plate [157] are portraits of a male and a female of the typical form of this species (Figs. 1 ♂ and 3 ♀); and two male examples (Figs. 2 and 4) of the Shetland race var. thulensis, Newman, better known perhaps as hethlandica, Staudinger, but the former is the older name. It will be noted that in the ordinary form the male has white wings, and that the female has yellowish fore wings marked with orange, and smoky hind wings. The Shetland male, represented by Fig. 2, has the fore wings whitish buff in colour with brownish markings similar in pattern to those of an ordinary female; the hind wings are blackish. The second example of thulensis (Fig. 4) is somewhat similar in appearance to a typical female. In other male specimens of this insular race the wings are pretty much of the typical colour, but the markings on the front pair are reduced both in number and size. Mr. H. McArthur, who has collected a good deal in the Shetland Isles, states that in Unst, the most northern island of the group, more or less typical humuli were found on the cliffs facing south-east, whilst the majority of the specimens obtained in boggy meadows, etc., were of the thulensis form.