44 LEPIDOPTERA. 



appearances, being sometimes apparently absent for years 

 from its favourite haunts. These are mainly in Cambridge- 

 shire — the meadows around Wicken Fen, Waterbeach, 

 Chippenham, along the banks of the Cam near Cambridge, 

 near Chatteris, and rarely near Wisbech. In Norfolk the 

 Eev. H. Williams used to take it, singly, every year in the 

 meadows near his house at Croxton, Thetford ; Mr. Atmore 

 has once secured a specimen near King's Lynn, and casual 

 specimens have been taken elsewhere in the county and 

 also very rarely in Suffolk. At one time it was pretty 

 common round Holme Fen, and indeed there is every 

 probability that before the drainage of the Bedford Level the 

 range of the species in this country was far more extended. 

 One specimen which was taken in June I860 by the late 

 Mr, Howard Yaughan in Bishop's Wood, Hampstead, close 

 to Loudon, must surely have been a wanderer from some 

 more distant locality. I know of no instance of its occur- 

 rence elsewhere in these islands. Abroad it has a very wide 

 range and is sometimes excessively abundant. There is a 

 record (by Herr 8tange) in the neighbourhood of Halle, 

 Germaoy, of the movement of its larvte in masses, crossing 

 a road from one field to another, '• occupying a space of 

 twenty paces in width and being thirty-six hours in transit " ! 

 It appears to be found throughout Central Europe, in South 

 Sweden, Italy, Corsica, Livonia, Northern Turkey, Armenia, 

 Asia Minor, India. Japan (where it is abundant and of rather 

 a large size, receiving the name of gnmia), and in North 

 America and Jamaica. 



(Prodenia littoralis, i;.— This is a very pretty species 

 with narrow pointed fore wings, which are brown, with 

 the nervures and hind margin streaked with ochreous, and 

 have a broad, oblique, pale ochreous stripe from the costa, 

 crossing the orbicular stigma, and meeting a more dusky 

 broad stripe from the apex. Hind wings exquisitely deli- 

 cate, semi-transparent silky white. It inhabits sandy districts 



