Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/220

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174
SPILOSOMA ARGE.

all the day and night without intermission. Soon they leave the meadows, aggregated in great numbers, and commence the wandering state, or begin to run, as is the phrase, devouring every thing in their progress; corn-fields, gardens, and even the coarse and rank produce of road-sides, afford them temporary nourishment, until they have found a place of security from the wind and weather.[1]



SPILOSOMA ARGE.

PLATE XIX. Fig. 2.

Phalæna (Noctua) arge, Drury, vol. i. pl. 18, f. 3.—Phalæna (Bombyx) Dione, Fabr.; Abbot and Smith, Lepid. Georg., vol. ii. pl. 63.

Nearly all the Tiger and Ermine moths are subject to great variation in their markings, but the present species seems to exceed even the usual limits in this respect. The ground colour of the upper wings and thorax is generally cream-colour, at other times it is of delicate pink; the surface variegated with numerous black lines and angular spots. The hinder wings are either cream-colour or tinged with red, having a fulvous marginal line and many oblong black spots posteriorly. The antennæ are black at

  1. Quoted in Westwood's Drury, i. 7.