SERICORID^—HED YA . 5 



oblique, soft pale brown, dotted with black ; costa dotted with 

 browu ; two brown or black spots in the apical region ; cilia 

 creamy white with dark shading. Hind wings and their 

 cilia i3ale smoky brown. Female similar, or a little larger. 



Underside of the fore wings pale smoky brown, with a few 

 white costal dots. Hind wings smoky white. 



On the wing in July and August. 



Larva active, wrinkled, slightly flattened, broadest toward 

 the head and decidedly tapering toward the tail ; dull, dirty 

 white, with the raised dots large and of the same colour ; 

 head rather flat, and, with the dorsal plate, jet black ; anal 

 plate light brown ; feet grey. 



May and June on poplars — F. nigra, P. alha, P. balsam- 

 i/era, P. trcmv.la, and other species — in a chamber hollowed 

 in a twig, generally just below the origin of a leaf, or in 

 P. halsamifera eating out the pith of the petiole quite into 

 a leaf, in which it exudes its frass through a small hole 

 in such a manner that the excrement stands up like a 

 little brown horn. This in other poplars takes place in 

 the twig or shoot. 



Pupa light brown ; in a silken cocoon among rubbish, 

 anywhere, or sometimes in the larval burrow. 



The moth, here in the suburbs of London, is during its 

 season one of our most constantly familiar objects. It sits 

 by day on the trunks of poplars, never hiding itself within 

 the fissures, but sitting across them or on any projecting bit 

 of bark as though scorning concealment, or on fences, or 

 walls, or on almost any solid object near the trees ; neat, 

 compact, and in a more than ordinary degree pretty. If 

 disturbed it flies swiftly to some similar resting-place, but at 

 sunset begins to move, and then may be seen buzzing about 

 the poplar branches and twigs till dusk. Probably more 

 plentiful in the London suburbs than anywhere else, but 

 tolerably common throughout Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hants, 



