158 LEPIDOPTERA. 



adjoining it is usually a paler dorsal blotch, rather curved 

 back, and divided in the middle by a siruilarly curved black 

 streak ; a blackish cloud lies near the anal angle, and 

 another at the apex, the ocellus between being jDale grey, 

 dotted and edged with black ; cilia grey. Hind wings black- 

 brown with whitish cilia. Female similar but larger. 



Undersides of all the wings smoky-black, shading to 

 whiter at the margins. 



On the wing in June and July. 



Larva somewhat flattened, narrowed behind, dull pale 

 amber-yellow, with longitudinal stripes of faint orange-colour ; 

 raised dots shining orange ; head pale brown ; dorsal plate 

 pale yellow ; anal plate similar ; on the middle of the 

 twelfth segment is a dull lead-coloured spot. (Wilkinson.) 



August to October in beech-mast, usually hollowing out 

 two adjoining kernels ; leaving them when they fall, in 

 autumn, and spinning up in any dry place among rubbish, 

 especially preferring rotten wood, and forming a tough 

 cocoon, in which it sometimes remains unchanged more 

 than one year. 



The moth sits during the day on beech trees, especially 

 upon the branches, from which it may occasionally be beaten 

 out. It flies naturally from 6 p.m. till sunset or even dusk, 

 rather high about the same trees. Rather a local species, 

 frequenting beech-woods, and sometimes common in those 

 of the chalk districts of the South of England, and found in 

 Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, Oxford- 

 shire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Herts, Cambs. Essex, 

 Suffolk and Norfolk, also recorded by the late Mr. T. 

 Wilkinson at Scarborough, Yorkshire, but so far as I know 

 not present elsewhere in these Islands. Abroad its range is 

 through Central and Southern Europe, and it is found in 

 Madeira. 



