P 1 7vM US TID.-E—PIONEA . 229 



been known to come to light at night. Scarce and excessively 

 local, usually even rare, with us, but it is said to have been, 

 in one season, forty years ago, common in Cambridgeshire, 

 especially around Wicken Fen. This district has since then 

 been usually its principal haunt though it has been seldom 

 taken. Formerly it was reported to occur at Deal, and more 

 recently at Folkestone, both in Kent ; also in the Isle of 

 Wight ; a single specimen was secured at light at New- 

 bury, Berks, and one at Mile End, London. Others have 

 recently occurred at Tuddenham, Suffolk — where Mr. E. 

 Sparke tells me that it is not rare — at Woodstock, Oxford- 

 shire ; and in Norfolk ; and now it is found, as Mr. A. E. 

 Gibbs informs me, in Herts. In many recent years, never- 

 theless, it has certainly been generally a rare insect ; and I 

 have no knowledge of its existence in any other portions of 

 the British Isles than those just mentioned. Abroad it seems 

 to be found all over Europe, except in the Spanish Penin- 

 sula and the polar regions ; also in Lydia, Siberia, Tartary, 

 Japan, and apparently some portions of North America. 



2. P. stramentalis, Hub. ; straminalis, StaiuL Cat. 

 — Expanse 1 to 1^ inch. Fore wings shining straw-yellow, 

 clouded with brown behind, the nervures, transverse lines, 

 and edges of stigmata reddish-brown, giving it a latticed 

 appearance. Hind wings white, edged with brown. 



Antennae simple, finely ciliated, brown ; palpi small and 

 slender, brown, the maxillary pair perceptible, pointed ; face 

 brownish white ; top of the head spotted with black ; thorax 

 pale yellow, tinged in front with yellow-brown ; abdomen 

 slender, dull white. Fore wings broad ; costa arched ; apex 

 squarely angulated ; hind margin rounded and very full ; 

 dorsal margin also filled out ; colour straw-yellow ; nervures 

 all tinged with red-brown, and there is between them some 

 dusting of the same colour ; first line oblique, slender, 

 strongly waved, red-brown ; second line similar in colour, 

 slender, more direct, bent back at the costa; near the hind 



