1 04 LEPID OP TERA . 



the black spiracles. When very young smooth and glossy, 

 creamy-white, the pale green dorsal vessel shining through 

 the skin ; Avhen more advanced, the colouring deeper and 

 stripes brownish. (Condensed from Buckler.) 



June and July in the flowering stems of sedges — Carcx 

 'palvjlom ? and probably C. (jlauca; cotton grass {Eriophorum); 

 also very probably in other sedges and grasses, or even rushes ; 

 feeding down the stem towards the root-stock, and hardly 

 producing any external mark of its presence. 



Pupa slender-, five -eighths inch long, very uniform in sub- 

 stance throughout ; thorax rather short, convexly rounded ; 

 head sloping forward and prolonged with a tendency to a 

 beak, though rounded off at the tip ; wing-covers proportion- 

 ately short ; movable abdominal segments longer than usual ; 

 last three segments tapering a little, ending in a short blunt 

 thorny projection ; colour light brownish-ochreous, with a 

 faintly darker dorsal stripe ; the anal projection dark brown, 

 and the whole surface very glossy. (W. Buckler.) In the 

 excavation made by the larva in the stem. 



The moth is rarely seen in the daytime, doubtless it hides 

 close to the ground. At early dusk it flies swiftly in and 

 out near the ground in its favourite damp spots, but very soon 

 settles down upon the stems of rushes or grasses, whence it 

 is easily picked oft' with the aid of a lantern ; but if alarmed 

 dives down at once to the roots of the grass. The female 

 does not seem to fly till later, and is very sluggish. The 

 male is again on the wing before midnight, and flies higher 

 and more widely at that time. Then attracted by a strong 

 light, but apparently not by any food ; or the males may be 

 seen flying in little companies over a freshly emerged female. 

 Always attached to damp marshy spots, very plentiful in fens 

 and wet places about woods, but also found in any little 

 marshy places on a hillside, the corner of a field, or the edges 

 of a shallow ditch. Found in such situations more or less 

 commonly throughout England, except a large portion of the 



