228 LEPIDOPTERA. 



spot very large, elongated, smoky-black ; beyond it is a 

 slender sinuous smoky-black transverse line. Body and leg- 

 tufts pale brown tinged with red ; legs deejDer red. 



Variation in this species seems to be almost confined to 

 degrees of intensity of the colour of the fore wings, occasional 

 specimens in the South and East of England being of a light 

 purple-red or purplish-pink, while others become purple- 

 brown, and sometimes almost dark purple-grey from excess 

 of the aslaj'-'grey bloom ; from Dumbartonshire specimens 

 sent by Mr. J. R. Malloch are of an extremely dark greyish- 

 purple, almost exactly the colour of Noctua sohrina. Examples 

 almost equally dark and with one half the wing silvered 

 with ashy-grey have been taken in the North of Ireland. 



On the wing at the end of March and in April. 



Larva stout, slightly swollen behind and attenuated in 

 front ; head small, dull-brown reticulated with dark-brown ; 

 body purplish-chocolate dusted with grey, with a series of very 

 conspicuous yellow subdorsal dashes, each situated in a broad 

 transverse gi-eyish-olive or rich brown shade, and edged 

 above by a deep black triangular blotch containing a white 

 dot. Faint indications of broad V-shaped darker dorsal 

 markings point forward, and through them runs a geminated, 

 inconspicuous greyish dorsal line ; spiracular stripe broad, 

 of a paler shade of the ground colour, whitish on the second, 

 third, and thirteenth segments. (C. Fenn.) 



When younger, darker brown, and having the spiracular 

 stripe bright-yellow ; spiracles black ; undersurface a little 

 paler than the general colour, with the legs and prolegs similar. 



April to June on dock, chickweed, groundsel, bedstraw, 

 and other low-growing plants, and on sallow ; feeding at 

 night but remaining in the daytime stretched out straight on 

 the stems or leaves of its food plant. 



Pupa very stout ; anal extremity with two closely converg- 

 ing bristles ; colour shining mahogany-red. Subterranean, 

 in a hard brittle earthen cocoon. (C. Fenn.) 



