22 LEPIDOPTERA. 



Pupa yellow-brown ; in a slight cocoon in the earth. Not 

 more particularly described. 



The moth has the habits of the previous species, and is 

 rarely seen in the daytime. At dusk it comes eagerly to 

 sugar, ivy-bloom, ripe blackberries, and rotten apples; and 

 occasionally to light. It will move about and sometimes 

 feed on any mild night throughout the winter ; pairs very 

 early in the spring, and lays its eggs in March. From this 

 time it is scarce and hardly notices the sallow-bloom, though 

 such individuals as are about will still come to sugar. Most 

 plentiful in woods, but generally distributed throughout 

 England, except perhaps the western half of Cornwall, and 

 in most districts abundant, the present Fen districts and some 

 portions of the Midlands forming in some degree an excep- 

 tion. Common also in both North and South Wales, and 

 throughout the South and East of Scotland, also in West 

 Ross, and has been taken by Mr. Cheesman at Stromness, 

 Orkney. Found all over Ireland, and usually common in 

 that country. Abroad it ranges through Central, and the tem- 

 perate portions of Northern, Europe, Northern Italy, Southern 

 Russia, and the mountainous regions of Central Asia. In 

 North America is a variable species called S. sidus, Gn., 

 which may possibly be no more than a local race of the 

 present. 



Genus 81. XYLINA. 



Antennas ciliated, sometimes tufted at the base and clothed 

 with scales which taper off ; eyes naked, with lashes in front 

 and at the back, the latter curled ; head furnished with pro- 

 jecting tufts ; thorax square, shouldered, crested at the top 

 and back ; abdomen slightly flattened, usually with three to 

 five small crests or tufts. Fore wings long and narrow, with 

 the apex blunt and the anal angle rather excavated. Hind 

 wings small ; crossbar faint : vein 5 from below its middle. 



