358 LEPIDOPTERA. 



temperature than that prevailing out of doors they would 

 hatch in the autumn ; and Mr. C. S. Gregson says that when 

 so hatched the larvas grow to about three-eighths of an inch 

 long before the winter, and then make slight silken hyberna- 

 cula among the moss and lichens on the tree-trunks ; in April 

 they begin to eat ravenously, and grow with great rapidity. 

 In their natural condition the eggs lie through the winter. 

 The young larvse, as soon as they are hatched, burrow into 

 the buds of ash and eat them out, afterwards feeding on the 

 young shoots, but hiding in the chinks of the bark of ash- 

 trees by day. 



Pupa apparently undescribed. The Eev. Joseph Greene, 

 m his article on pupa digging, gives elaborate directions for 

 finding it. He says that it is contained in an egg-shaped 

 cocoon, in some districts hard and brittle, in others soft and 

 leathery ; placed among loose earth and rubbish or moss at 

 the roots of ash-trees of good growth, and most frequently 

 those on the borders of streams and damp ditches. The 

 larva lies four or five weeks in cocoon before assuming the 

 pupa state. 



The moth may be found occasionally sitting upon the 

 lower portion of the trunk of an ash-tree in the daytime, 

 more frequently at its foot or on the ground close by, where 

 it is wonderfully protected by its unexjDected similarity to 

 the dead hawthorn leaves which so often lie about the same 

 place. At night it is strongly attracted by light, and has 

 been taken, though rarely, at sugar and heather-blossom. It 

 seems formerly to have been very rare with us ; the first, or 

 nearly the first, British specimen being recorded by Curtis 

 as having been taken at Costessey near Norwich in 1813. 

 Stephens says that only four or five were known before 

 1827, of which three were taken in Norfolk. Now very 

 widely distributed, and even common in the Cotswokl district 

 of Gloucestershire, and in Leicestershire and Derbyshire. 

 Thirty years ago to be found occasionally at Lewisham and 



