I JO LEPIDOI'TERA. 



the wing, the ordinary dots being still blacker ; or to a 

 whitish ground with a partial similar stripe ; in the female 

 the area corresponding to this longitudinal stripe is some- 

 times shaded with brown, but occasionally has also a con- 

 nected series of dark brown spots and clouds. 

 On the wing from June till August. 



Larva claj'-yellow, with the folds across the segments 

 glistening grey ; head and dorsal plate glossy brownish- 

 yellow, the latter often dotted with darker ; mouth black- 

 brown, and a similar crooked stripe on the side. (When fed 

 in confinement it often becomes of an olive-green colour.) 

 Raised dots brown and very small ; prolegs small, dotted 

 with dark brown. 



May and June in the yowag shoots oi A rundo phrcirjmitrs 

 (reed), which it often destroys beneath the surface of the 

 water. (Treitschke.) Moritz adds that in order to move 

 from one stem of reed to another it separates a piece of stem 

 of about its own length, closes it at each end, and floats in 

 this upon the water until it reaches a suitable reed stem to 

 which it fastens its vessel before boring into the stem to feed 

 in the interior. 



I'UPA smooth, straw-yellow. (Treitschke.) In a long 

 tubular cocoon in the reed stem in which the larva fed, 

 placed just below the hole gnawed for egress. Inside this 

 tube it moves backwards or forwards with great rapidity. 



This species is confined, with us, to the larger fens, and 

 sides of rivers where reed is plentiful. It flies at dusk and 

 after dark, usually over the more inaccessible portions, and 

 often over the water ; but is never seen, so far as I am aware, 

 on the wing by day — nor is its retreat at that time known 

 further than the certainty that it must be among the large 

 reeds, to the sheaths and dried leaves of which both sexes 

 bear a close, and most pi-otective, resemblance. Formerly 

 found, so long as they existed, in the fens of Huntingdon- 



