Except as regards the Larentiinæ, I have largely adhered to Staudinger's arrangement of genera in each of the above subfamilies.
The typical genus of Larentiinæ would be Larentia, Treit, to which something over two hundred species are referred by Staudinger, among which are upwards of sixty that occur in the British Isles. Following some of the later generic changes, I find that none of our species are left in Larentia, but a few fall into Hydriomena, Hübner, and therefore Hydriomeninæ has been adopted for this subfamily.
GEOMETRINÆ.
The Rest Harrow (Aplasta ononaria).
This greyish-brown moth has two darker, sometimes reddish, cross lines on the fore wings, and one such line on the hind wings. It is presumably only to be regarded as an accidental visitor to England. The first record was of a specimen captured in the Warren at Folkestone in July, 1866, and since that year others were obtained in the same locality, but apparently not more than about half a dozen altogether. None seems to have been recorded for over thirty-five years. The specimen, whose portrait is shown on Plate [38], Fig. 3, was obtained from Dresden.
Abroad, the range includes Central and Southern Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, and Armenia.
The Grass Emerald (Pseudoterpna pruinata).
When freshly emerged from the chrysalis, the species represented by Figs. 6 to 8 on Plate [38] is of a beautiful blue-green colour, but in course of time a greyish shade creeps over the wings. The dark cross lines vary in intensity; in some specimens well defined and blackish, in others very faint, and hardly discernible; occasionally, the space between the lines on the fore wings is dark shaded; the whitish submarginal line is not always present. This species is the cythisaria of Schiffermiller, and the cytisaria of other authors.
The caterpillar (figured on Plate [41], Fig. 1, from a coloured drawing by Mr. A. Sich) is green, with three lines along the back, the central one dark green, the others whitish; a pinkish stripe low down along the sides, the points on the head and the first and last rings of the body are often pink also. It feeds on pettywhin (Genista anglica), also on broom (Cytisus scoparius)