SERICORID^—RE TIN J A . 39 



silvery-brown, rippled all over with deeper brown irregular 

 lines and broader, more chocolate-brown, incomplete bands 

 — one before the middle nearly complete and upright, a 

 central band broken up and bulging greatly beneath the 

 costa, a large dark spot or patch over the anal angle, and a 

 still larger one near the wing-apex — though some specimens 

 show a succession of four or five incomplete bauds ; cilia 

 pale brown. Hind wings and their cilia smoky brown. 

 Female similar. 



Underside of the fore wings smoky brown, with yellowish 

 costal dots, and a whitish brown hind margin. Hind wings 

 pale smoky brown. 



On the wing in June and July. 



Larva uniformly dark red or liver colour; head and dorsal 

 plate brown. 



April and May, but probably from the previous autumn ; 

 on Scotch fir {Fijivs sylvestris), feeding in the tender young 

 shoots, commonly in a side shoot rather than the main or 

 centre one, hollowing it out while still young. 



Pupa not very glossy ; thorax reddish-brown ; abdomen 

 pale, and dull; the rings bristling with minute points; 

 cremaster blunt and rounded, furnished with minute hooked 

 bristles. In the shoot in which the larva has fed, emerging 

 from a hole in the apex which has been concealed by the 

 bracts. 



This is a lively species. It sits by day in the young fir- 

 trees, and will sometimes dash straight away from them as 

 though to examine an intruder, and then return or travel 

 to a more distant group of trees. Those which are scattered 

 about an open heath are much favoured. Sometimes it will 

 fly briskly about the trees in bright sunshine ; and at dusk 

 it is very brisk over and around them, and on their sheltered 

 side. Not rare in the outskirts of London and in Kensington 



