The caterpillar is green with whiter ring divisions; a few long whitish hairs on each segment; a faintly darker line along the back, and a paler interrupted line along the sides. Head yellowish green marked with brownish and sparsely clothed with whitish hairs. It feeds in June and July on the leaves of oak and sometimes on sallow. It spins a whitish boat-shaped cocoon on the under side of an oak leaf or twig, and therein turns to a pale green chrysalis with a broad purple brown stripe along the back from the head; the blunt last ring is tinged with purplish brown and the edge of the ring immediately before it is fringed with minute hooks (Plate 72, Figs. 4, 4a). The moth seems to be out from August to April. It may be {148} beaten from trees and bushes throughout the autumn, and during the later months of the year it seems to hide in yews and hollies. Just before dusk it becomes active and may then be netted as it flies; later on it may be seen regaling itself on overripe blackberries, or on the ivy blossom, and it is not an infrequent visitor to the sugar patch. The species has been found in almost every part of England and Wales wherever there are oak woods. In Scotland it occurs up to Argyllshire and Moray. For Ireland, Kane gives Tyrone, Westmeath, Galway, Kerry, and Limerick. Distribution abroad: Central and Southern Europe, extending northwards to Scandinavia, and eastwards to Amurland and Japan. ARCTIIDÆ. In this family Staudinger includes 161 species known to occur in the Palæarctic Region. About forty of these are found in Europe, and thirty-one of the latter rank as British species. The family is usually divided into two sub-families--Arctiinæ and Lithosiinæ, fifteen of our species being referred to the former and sixteen to the latter. In both groups the caterpillars are hairy, but the hairs are usually longer in those of the "Tigers" than in those of the "Footmen"; the latter, too, are lichen feeders, whilst the others prefer the foliage of plants. TIGER MOTHS (_Arctiinæ_). The moths in this sub-family have short, or, rather, stout bodies, and ample wings; and as the tongue is imperfectly developed in most of the species, flowers have not the same attraction for them as for the long-winged and slender-bodied Lithosiinæ, most members of which have this organ well developed. [Illustration] Pl. 74. WHITE ERMINE MOTH. _Caterpillar, chrysalis and cocoon._ [Illustration] Pl. 75. 1, 2, 3. WHITE ERMINE MOTH. 4, 5. MUSLIN MOTH, _females_; 6 _male_. 7. WATER ERMINE, _male_; 8 _female_. {149} THE WHITE ERMINE (_Spilosoma menthastri_). Older English names for this generally distributed and often common species are The Great Ermine Moth of Wilkes (1773), Harris (1778), and The Large Ermine of Haworth.