When full grown, the caterpillar attains a length of nearly 5 inches, and is of considerable thickness throughout. Usually { 25} the general colour is some shade of green, varying to yellowish, but in some examples it is brown, more or less tinged with violet; others again are of a blackish hue. The seven oblique side stripes are purplish or violet brown, edged with yellowish; they are absent from the three rings nearest the head; the rough, double curved horn is of the body colour. The greenish forms are sprinkled with violet dots, and the brownish forms with white ones. Most frequently found on the leaves of potato; it feeds also on the "tea-tree" (_Lycium barbarum_), woody nightshade (_Solanum dulcamara_), and snowberry (_Symphoricarpus_). Fig. 1, Plate 9, represents the brown form of the caterpillar.
When ready to enter the chrysalis state, the caterpillar burrows from 2 to 4 inches below the surface of the soil, and there forms a large chamber, the walls of which are not very substantial and are easily broken. After resting therein for a week, or two, it turns to a dark brownish, rather glossy, chrysalis. (Plate 11, Fig. 1). The earthen cocoon, frail as it is, seems to be a protection to the chrysalis, guarding it from too much moisture on the one hand, or dryness on the other. I always found that when chrysalids from caterpillars that I have obtained were left undisturbed the moths emerged well enough; but when they were turned up out of the ground by the potato diggers, and, of course, without covering, they were almost certain to perish if the attempt were made to keep them through the winter. In the latter case, the only chance was to endeavour to induce the moth to emerge as soon as possible by bringing them under the combined influence of warmth and moisture.
This species was known to Mouffett, who figured it in 1634, but it does not appear to have received an English name until 1773, when Wilkes figured it as the "Jasmine Hawk Moth." Moses Harris, in 1775, called it the "Bee Tyger Hawk Moth," but three years later he changed the name to the Death's Head, the name by which it is still known, although in some { 26} parts of England, as well as in Ireland, it is referred to as the "bee robber." In connection with the latter name, it may be mentioned that the moth's "tongue," or proboscis, is short, and not adapted for obtaining sweets, of which it is very fond, from long-tubed flowers, consequently it filches honey from the bees, and, with this object, has been known to enter bee-hives, at least those of the old straw-skep pattern. The moth is also said to have a liking for the sap exuded by wounded trees. Although the species may, perhaps, be with us in certain favoured localities every year, it does not often occur, in any stage, in numbers sufficient to attract general attention. I have not searched the chronicles of _Atropos_ in Britain earlier than 1864, but from these it seems that the species was widely distributed and generally common in 1865, 1868, 1878, 1885, 1896, and 1900. More or less common in certain localities in 1867, 1869, 1870-1872, 1877, 1880, 1882, 1884, 1893, 1895, 1899, 1911, and 1917. In the other years it was scarce, or apparently absent.