LAREXTID.-E—F.MMELESrA. 239 



spots down to the anal point : sides and abdomen pale pink- 

 ish-}"ello\v, with two spots on each segment ; legs of the 

 colour of the abdomen ; head slightly darker, with short 

 scattered hairs. It has a peculiar attitude \yheu at rest ; it 

 looks like a pot-hook. (J. B. Hodgkinson.) 



August or September till May, on moss {Bnjuni ?), feeding 

 ou the capsules and contained seeds or spores. The state- 

 ment by Mr. J. B. Hodgkinson, who obtained eggs and fed 

 larvie in several successive years, that they ate " a small 

 flowering moss growing by wet rills " is confirmed by Colonel 

 Partridge, who fed his larva"' upon the capsules of a wall 

 moss. Hofmann, however, states that the food is dead leaves 

 of low plants, such as cliickweed (A/sine media). Mr. liuss 

 who found it in the west of Ireland, wrote me " It feeds in 

 the wettest places, among a constant dropping of water, on 

 some close moss-like plant. It is a night feeder, and difficult 

 to detect.'' 



Plta apparently undescribed. 



The moth inhabits very wet spots, usually among scattered 

 trees, hiding almost always in holly or yew trees, or sitting 

 on their trunks, but has been found sitting openly on a fir 

 trunk. Mr. Kane says that it frequents hedges or foliage in 

 the sunny sides of woods or ojien glades, whence it can be 

 beaten out on hot days. It is a curious circumstance that 

 captured specimens are almost always in worn condition. 

 Apparently it cannot be induced to ily in the daytime until 

 its first beauty of colouring has departed. But if found on 

 the trunk of a tree it is sometimes (piite perfect. Excessively 

 local in these Islands. Found in the darkest, wettest woods 

 in North Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland ; also 

 recorded at Dovedale, Derbyshire; near Scarborough, "^'ork- 

 shire, by the late Mr. T. Wilkinson : at Castle Eden Dene, 

 Durham; at Tintern, Monmouthshire; and in North Wales 

 at Arthog. In Scotland it has been taken at Jvannocli. by 

 111'. F. D. Whe.'ler; and at I'illochrie, l'(>Hlisliivc. bvtlie l{e-v. 



