22 LEPIDOPTERA. 



PrPA polished, | inch long, and tolerably plump; thickest 

 at the ends of the wing cases, and having the eye, antenna, 

 and wing-covers well defined ; tapering rather suddenly to 

 the anal tip ; head, thorax, and wing-cases green ; abdominal 

 segments rather pale brown. (G. T. J'orritt.) In a toler- 

 ably firm cocoon of silk and earth, in the ground or among 

 dead leaves. 



The moth is a creature of very quiet habits, spending the 

 day hidden among the coarse rank grasses, sedges, and other 

 plants which grow into dense masses in, and under, the 

 sallow bushes, in its favourite fenny haunts. By stooping 

 down and separating these plants it is possible to disturb it 

 and induce it to come crawling up into the light, but it is 

 sluggish, and hardly cares to fly further then to plunge 

 again into obscurity. A\, dusk it files over and around the 

 same bushes, especially those which shelter its food plant, 

 but is then by no means easy to see. It is, however, said to 

 be procurable at the ilowers of the buckthorn. The larva is 

 readily found, and it naturally follows that the vast majority 

 of specimens in collections have been reared in confinement. 

 Found only in the deepest, wettest fens, or the most marshy 

 portions of wet woods. Fifty years ago the late Mr. 

 Frederick Bond found it, pretty commonly, in Burwell, Horn- 

 sey, and Wicken Fens, Cambridgeshire ; and although the 

 other two fens have long been destroyed, it is still frequent 

 at Wicken. Also pretty common in the extensive ranges of 

 fens bordering the rivers Yare, Bure, Thurn, and Ant in 

 Norfolk, and in wet woods near Kings Lynn in the same 

 county. Also to be found in the wettest portions of the 

 New Forest, Hants ; in similar spots in Dorset ; rarely in 

 one locality in Cheshire, and more frequently on some bogs 

 near York, where in 1891 it was even abundant. This 

 appears to be the extent of its range in these islands. 



Abroad it is widely distributed through Central Europe, 

 Middle and Northern Italy, Dalmatia, Livonia, Finland, and 



