igS LEPinOPTERA. 



Jn this condition throujfh the winter. 



The moth hides during the day in niaph^ bushes, and 

 especially liedges, in our southern and eastern districts; 

 sitting with its wings pressed ilatly down to the surface of 

 the underside of a leaf, hut the fore wings not coveiing the 

 hind. It is easily distui-l)ed by the beating stick, but only 

 flics a short distance to hide again, licfore dusk in the 

 evetiiug. indeed usually before sunset, it flies of its own 

 accord over the same bushes, often at a considerable hciglit 

 from tlie ground. Hut in the wet valleys and ravines of the 

 hill districts of the JMidlands and the North, where no maple 

 is found, it frequents the alder trees, often in abundance 

 sitting under their leaves in the day-time, and flying about 

 them in a very lively fashion in full daylight in the late after- 

 noon. There is something very curious about this sharp con- 

 trast in the habits of the species. I cannot find that in any 

 district it frequents lioth alder and maple, or that in the 

 more northern districts it is ever found about the latter food- 

 plant. It is as though there were two races of the species, 

 having different distribution and (bffering food-plants ; even 

 thi' description quoted by llofmanu of the larva, as found 

 upon alder, does not agree with that figured and described 

 in this country from maple. Yet the imagines agree most 

 accurately, and doubtless form one S])ecies. Where such 

 localities as I have stated exist it seems to occur throughout 

 England from Cornwall to Northumberland, and in Wales in 

 the more eastern |)ortions. including (damorganshire and 

 Flintshire, but I never .'^aw it in J'embrokeshire or Carmar- 

 thenshire. In Scotland it is found as in the north of 

 Englanil, in valleys and glens among alder in the southern 

 district to Clydesdale and I'lithshire. which seem to be the 

 limits of its range in these islands. I find no recoi'd for 

 Ireland. 



Abroad it has an extensive distribution through Central 

 Europe, the tenqierate jiorticns of Northern l\uro])e, 



