122 LEPIDOPTERA. 



ash, blackthorn, apple, lilac, and aprkot, feeding at night, 

 resting by day on the twigs or branches of trees, or, when 

 well grown, very often upon the trunks, stretched stiffly out, 

 but holding on with legs as well as prolegs, and then bearing 

 the most remarkable resemblance to a short bit of very dirtj^ 

 string nailed to the tree. 



Pupa stout, anal extremity tapering and spiked, surface 

 rather rough ; dull purplish-brown. Subterranean, enclosed 

 in an extremely brittle earthen cocoon. (C. Fenn.) 



The eggs are deposited in large l^atches or cakes in the 

 crevices of bark ; and, unless some substitute be provided 

 into which the female can thrust deeply her ovipositor, she 

 cannot be induced to deposit them in confinement. It is, 

 however, sufficient to satisfy her, that she be confined in a 

 pill box wli.ieh is not quite closed ; she will then pass them 

 through the chink, and lay them vpon the outside. They are 

 usually bright green, bvit Mr. Hobert Adkin observed that in 

 the case of two females in his possession, which were induced 

 to deposit, those first laid were dark green, those three or 

 four days later orange-yellow, and those still later very pale 

 yellow. None changed colour — except to leaden before 

 hatching — alt hatched, but in each case the third batch hefore 

 the second, or orange batch. 



The habits of this moth are somewhat peculiar ; its espe- 

 cially favoured haunt in this country is London — its squares, 

 its parks, its churchyards, and its suburban gardens and 

 roads — those more particularly which are planted with lime 

 (linden) or poplar trees. Here it has become almost domes- 

 ticated, and seems to have lost in some degree its more 

 natural characteristics — as, for instance, in the country its 

 male may sometimes be taken on a warm spring evening 

 flying wildly and vigorously to a strong light — all the speci- 

 mens which I ever met with in South Wales were taken in 

 this manner — but in London such a habit seems to have 

 become lost, or verj^ nearly so ; it is a rare circumstance to 



