TRIFID^. 17 



day. The male also comes freely to sugar at dusk, to honey- 

 dew, ragwort bloom, and the flowers of hemlock (^Coniu7n 

 maculatum), Heracleum spliondylium, and other Umhelliferce. 

 So far as my own experience goes, the female does not appear 

 to be much tempted by these attractions. Often very plentiful 

 in damp meadows, the marshy borders of fens or rivers, and 

 moist woods. Apparently common in such suitable localities 

 all over the southern half of England, except perhaps Corn- 

 wall, where it is reported to be uncommon. Abundant at 

 the edges of fens in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, 

 and occurring, sometimes in more moderate numbers, through- 

 out the rest of England and Wales. Found also very generally 

 in suitable places in Scotland, abundantly in the woods of 

 Morayshire, and extending to the Hebrides and Shetland 

 Isles. Certainly found also in Ireland to Antrim and Armagh ; 

 probably, as Mr. Kane states, common in most parts of that 

 country, but his remarks are hampered by observations which 

 appear to refer to varieties of M. strigilis. Abroad the present 

 species seems to be very little known, its only recorded 

 localities so far as I can ascertain being France, Holland, 

 Jutland, and Portugal. It may have arisen from this circum- 

 stance, that it was mistaken, by even so great an authority as 

 M. Guence, for a variety of M. strigilis, and, as this error has 

 been more recently repeated, it may be well to point out the 

 distinctive characters of the two species — though to persons 

 having an intimate knowledge of them any such process will 

 seem superfluous. The thorax in M. fasciuncula is rather 

 stouter than in the other, and appears even more so from the 

 length and looseness of the scales with which it is covered, 

 while the abdomen — in the male especially — is much more 

 slender, shorter, and more obtusely terminated ; the fore wings, 

 instead of being rather long and rounded behind, as in strigilis, 

 are shorter, broad behind, and have the apex more decidedly 

 ang-ulated ; in them the central band is contracted below the 

 middle and very neatly edged with a hollow curve on each 

 side. It should also be noted that M. fasciuncula usually 

 VOL. V. B 



