1S92.1 



205 



With regard to this species, my own experience leads me to 

 consider it more local than its ally, 6\ uIvcb, but certainly more 

 sar}/ .*^.il (at least occasionally) where it occurs, than the latter ever 

 which . habits, too, differ considerably. Flammea is found chiefly 

 over the dryer parts of the fens, where the reed grows scattered and 

 m-i-o or less dwarfed. It flies with a fairly rapid flight, intermediate 

 between that of a Noctua, like L. impura, and that of a Geometer, 

 rarely rising to any height above the herbage, into which it drops on 

 the least alarm, when it is very difficult to detect. In fact, this habit 

 •".s its chief protection, as it flies usually below the level of the tops of 

 (he reeds, so that the net, striking these, is apt to alarm the moth and 

 cause it to drop. When, however, it comes to an attracting lamp 

 raised to a height of six or seven feet, it is very easily netted. 



S. ulvcB, on the other hand, is confined to the larger reed -beds, 

 where they have not been cut, so that old reed is mixed with the new. 

 Hence it is often more easily collected from the water than from the 

 land. In flight it has considerable resemblance to a Chilo, but there 

 is sufficient difference to render it fairly easy to recognise the species 

 on the wing. I have repeatedly, when working the reed-beds with a 

 Inmp, seen this insect either softly flutter through the reeds or crawl 

 up the stems, and settle on one of them in full light of the lamp. In 

 such case they are tantalizingly hard to secure, as the stiff reed-stems 

 give ample warning of the approach of a net. 



The larva of S. uhce seems to be yet unknown in this country ; 

 Treitschke says that it was found at Darmstadt in August, feeding in 

 the reed ; that it spun up at the end of September to hibernate, 

 appearing again in the spring, and feeding for two months, and that 

 it finally pupated within the reed. All this is just what one would 

 expect, but hitherto my efforts to find the larva here have been un- 

 successful, though, in the absence of a published description, it is 

 possible that this species may have occurred among larvae which I have 

 taken and failed to rear. 



Of the larva of M. flammea my first experience was in 1878, 

 when I took a number of caterpillars feeding externally on reed at 

 night, and noticed among them three or four rather prettily marked, 

 and reminding me somewhat of (the larva of) Leucania sframinea. 

 These pupated in the leaves of the reed in September, and in 1879, 

 from May 20th to 31st, I reared from them what I believe to have 

 been the first specimens of M. flammea bred in this country. I thnik 

 it was three years later that Mr. Fletcher found the larva fairly 



