^42 LEPIDOPTERA. 



also is the back of the abdomen ; head, eye, leg and antenna 

 covers well developed ; tip of abdomen rather blunt with a 

 few minute points ; rather shining ; colour a light warm 

 brown. (W. Buckler — condensed.) In a compact oval cocoon 

 in the earth ; in this the larva remains unchanged through 

 the winter and till late in the spring. Unfortunately only a 

 very small proportion of the moths seems to survive and 

 emerge. One curious trick of this species is that of occasional 

 companionship in cocoon of two sociable larva3. 



I think it uncertain whether this species is a permanent 

 resident with us. To me its habits seem to be those of an 

 immigrant which succeeds for a few years in maintaining 

 itself, and then dies out, to be reintroduced in some future 

 more favourable year. When present it frequents dry 

 fields, railway embankments, downs, and sometimes lanes 

 near the sea-coast, flying about the wild carrot, which is so 

 plentiful in such places, at early dusk and also in the day- 

 time, when disturbed by the footstep. Here also at con- 

 siderable intervals its larva is found, much more plentifully, 

 yet it is only in some especially favourable season that 

 the moths show a corresponding increase of numbers. It 

 seems to have been long known as British, for Haworth 

 speaks of it as very rare. This continued to be the case till 

 about 1858 when a great many specimens were obtained in 

 the Warren and adjoining coast at Folkestone. Two years 

 later it had spread to Heme Baj-, Deal, and other parts of the 

 coast of Kent. From that time for some years it spread rather 

 widely over the county of Kent, and to Sussex, Hants with the 

 Isle of Wight, where it has been taken at light ; to Devon, 

 Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire; also casual 

 specimens were taken in Berkshire, and even in Lancashire, 

 while one specimen found its way to Brockley in the South 

 London suburbs. A great falling off occurred after 1877, 

 and for a time it seemed to have very nearly died out ; but in 

 1898 it reappeared in Kent, and in the following two years in 



