6 LEI'IDOPTERA. 



tioii towards afternoou llit/Iit. Its natural and ordinary 

 lliglit, however, is at late dusk aud through the night, and 

 it conies very eagerly to a strong light, at which it nia\' be 

 boxed by hand without difliculty. I saw. once, about mid- 

 night, scores of specimens, all faded and brown, sitting upon 

 the white screen which was placed round a powerful lain]i in 

 one of the insect's favourite haunts at Merton, Norfolk. 



Before the year liSGU this was looked upon as one of our 

 most rare species. It had been then recorded from York- 

 shire by the late Mr, '!'. H. Allis — two specimens at Stockton- 

 in-the- Forest — and Mr. •!. Hirks lifid taken it near Ycrk. 

 ^[r. Joseph Sidebotham seems also to have laken it at 

 .Vshton-on-^fersey, in the adjoining county of Lancashire, 

 and I)]'. Lees reported the ca[)ture by liiniself of two ex- 

 amples at Winch Bridge, Upper Teesdale, Durham. But 

 in the year 18(i<J it was suddenly discovered to be a common 

 species in the district of loose (sometimes drifting or blown) 

 sands, Icnown as the Brack sand, and here — at Brandon, Thet- 

 tbrd, Tuddenham, Bury St. Edmunds, and elsewhere, over a 

 stri]) of country at least twenty miles in length, aud extend- 

 ing into Xoi-folk, Suffolk and ("ambridgeshire — it has ever 

 since been, and still is found, in such situations as I have 

 already described, in toleraljle plenty. Extending itself from 

 this particular formation over the — still sandy — heaths of 

 these counties, it has also been found casually or in very 

 small numbers at Norwich. King's Lynn, Narborough, by 

 Mr. .V I more, St. I'aith's, at one end of Hartou Broad, by Dr. 

 Wheeler, and at Aldebuigh, by the Bev, ('. 'J", t'ruttwell. 

 The only localities for it of which I am aware it) I he Southern 

 Counties are Folkestone, Kent, where it is rare, and Guest- 

 ling, Hastings. Sussex, where one s])eciiuen has been taken. 

 No records seem to exist for other portions of these islands. 

 -Vbroad it extends over almost the whole of I^urope, in- 

 • huling Portugal; through Asia Elinor, .\rmenia, Hithynia, 

 Northern I'ersiii, and into Eastern Siberia. 



