j6 LEPIDOFTERA. 



brown or rust-colour toward the apex and hind margin ; still 

 crossed by silvery-brown slender stripes which originate in 

 costal brown twin-spots ; cilia greyish-white, tipped with 

 black. Hind wings white, dusted with brown ; cilia white. 

 Female usually larger and with a stouter body, but with 

 somewhat browner hind wings. 



Underside of the fore wings smoky black ; costa dotted 

 with white. Hind wings smoky white. 



On the wing in May and June. 



Larva yellow-brown, each segment crossed on the upper 

 surface by two parallel darker girdles ; dorsal plate and legs 

 black. 



October till April on Scotch fir (Pinus sylvcstrU) inside 

 the centre short at the tip of a branch, or more usually in the 

 centre shoot at the top of a young tree ; eating out the large 

 bud and mining down into the pith of the stem below ; 

 making a hole in the side, among the needles, through which 

 excrement is ejected ; around which resin gradually collects, 

 and through which the moth afterwards emerges. Also said 

 to feed in the shoots of Pimis picca. 



Pupa dark red-brown ; wing-covers and thorax brilliantly 

 glossy ; abdomen less so ; and paler in colour, the segments 

 doubly ringed with fine points; cremaster thick aud blunt, 

 set with minute hooked bristles. In the larval habitation, 

 at the top of the burrow, placed head downwards. Readily 

 found in the spring, the infested shoot remaining as a small 

 conical capsule in the midst of a ring of growing shoots, 

 Very often this capsule, however, only covers the spun-up 

 Ichneumon, which has previously destroyed the larva. 



The moth is sluggish in the daytime, sitting in the youug 

 trees of Scotch fir, but if disturbed usually dropping down, 

 and scarcely to be induced to fiy ; more active at dusk, and 

 then flying around the j^oung trees. So greatly infested 



