36 LEPIDOPTERA. 



brown mottled and shaded with pale purplish-brown oi 

 chocolate, which forms a broad dorsal shade edged with pale 

 yellow on the fourth and fifth segments; prominences slightly 

 darker ; spiracles black, conspicuous ; prolegs emerald or 

 sea-green ; undersurface of the ground colour with a whitish 

 stripe containing a purplish line ; often with conspicuous 

 V- or U-shaped markings on the undersurface of the fifth 

 and sixth segments and continued to the sides. 



Or — Purplish-grey, clouded and mottled with ochreous, 

 especially on the sides of the first four segments, and on the 

 back from the eighth segment; projections ochreous, dusted 

 with black. (C. Fenn.) 



June till August or September, on birch, sallow, oak, 

 hazel, ash, and wild cherry ; feeding at night, and growing 

 very slowly. 



Pupa rather cylindrical in the thoracic portion, and some- 

 what elongate ; eye-covers prominent ; antenna-covers neatly 

 sculptured with excavated cross-lines ; the remaining surface 

 smooth and glossy ; cremaster broad but tapering to a point, 

 and tipped with two or three minute curved bristles ; colour 

 red-brown, wing-covers tinged witli olive-green ; eye-covers 

 and cremaster black-brown. In a thin silken cocoon formed 

 of a drawn-together dead leaf or portions of moss or rubbish 

 in any crevice upon the ground. 



The moth sits during the day with depressed, extended 

 wings, usually on the upper side of a leaf, quite conspicuously, 

 on low-growing herbage in an open wood-path at the edge 

 of a wood or copse, or on a hillside or hedgebank in a well- 

 wooded district, and may be taken into the hand. When 

 disturbed it will only flutter down to the ground or to a 

 similar spot close by. Its natural flight is at dusk, but it is 

 not even at this time very energetic, and if seen sitting upon 

 a leaf is found then to carry its wings erect. Hardly ever 

 abundant, but found in suitable and favourite spots throughout 

 the South and West of England, and more locally in the 



