The caterpillar is ochreous brown, sprinkled and lined with reddish brown; a stripe low down along the sides is reddish orange. It feeds, in July and August, on the leaves of oak and poplar, but it has not been found in our Isles.
The Alchymist (Catephia alchymista).
This moth seems to have been known as a British species to Haworth, but he, and subsequently Stephens (1830), referred it to Noctua leucomelas, Linn. At all events, Stephen's description of the specimen in Haworth's cabinet bearing this name applies exactly to C. alchymista. In the Ent. Ann. for 1860 there is a figure of a specimen that was taken at sugar in the Isle of Wight, September, 1868. Seven years later, one was captured in an oak wood near Horsham, Sussex (June 4), and another found on the trunk of an oak tree near Colchester (June 9). In 1882, a specimen was taken at sugar in a wood near Dover (June), and on June 24, 1888, one came to sugar at St. Leonards, Sussex. In the last-named year, two other specimens, said to have been taken in the Isle of Wight, July, 1867, were recorded.
Fig. 2, Plate [29], represents a specimen from Dalmatia.
The Clifden Nonpareil (Catocala fraxini).
This handsome species (Plate [29], Fig. 3) seems to have been known to quite the earliest writers on, and delineators of, British moths, and a specimen in the Dale collection, now in the Hope Museum, Oxford, was obtained in Dorset in 1740. Stephens (1830) mentions captures in the years 1821, 1827, and 1828. Since that time the occurrence of the species in the British Isles, chiefly in single specimens, may be tabulated as follows: England—London, 1842, 1870, 1872. Kent, 1889,
1893, 1895, 1900. Sussex, 1838, 1869, 1889, 1895. Isle of Wight, 1866, 1900. North Devon, 1895. Somerset, 1850. Shropshire, 1872. Suffolk, 1868, 1872, 1901, 1905. Norfolk, 1846, 1872, 1894, 1900. Lincoln, 1872. Yorkshire, five specimens in all, the most recent in 1896. Lancashire, six specimens, latest 1868. Cheshire, four specimens, latest 1868. Scotland—1876 (Berwick); 1896 (Aberdeen and Orkney); 1898 (Roxburghshire). Ireland—1845, 1896.
It may be noted that during a period of seven years—1866 to 1872 inclusive—1867 and 1871 were the only years in which a specimen was not recorded from some part of England.
The caterpillar is pale ochreous, tinged with greenish and freckled with brown; head, pinkish, inclining to purplish above. It feeds on poplar in May, June, and July. From eggs (obtained from abroad) the caterpillars hatched April 27 till May 9, pupated between June 17 and 27, and the moths emerged July 20 to August 4.
The range abroad extends through Central Europe to Scandinavia, and eastward to Amurland.