TRIFID.-E. „ 5 



furnished with a pair of hooked spikes and several attendant 

 bristles. In a very tough cocoon of greyish-white silk placed 

 usually on the underside of a leaf of yellow-flag, bur-reed 

 reed, or even broad grass which has been bent, and strono-ly 

 drawn down, so as to render the cocoon inconspicuous. Some- 

 times lower down, among the grass stems or under a leaf 

 lying upon the ground. 



The moth frequents marshes, fens, swampy meadows, and 

 the banks of streams, and usually sits concealed during the 

 clay among tne herbage, but on warm afternoons will some- 

 times fly immediately after sunset, looking very bright and 

 pretty when hovering at flowers. Its usual flight is, however 

 at dusk, and it then comes eagerly to blossoms of yellow-flag' 

 purple loosestrife, mint, ragged-robin {Lychnis Jlos-cucuU), 

 L vespertine, Silene maritima (near the sea), S. injUUa 

 ^chyspalustris, S. syhatica, turn-cap lily, rhododendron, and 

 bramble. It has even been captured hovering at sugar Not 

 common in the South of England, though recorded in Devon 

 Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset, and rarely in Sussex, Wilts' 

 iterks and Gloucestershire ; more frequently in Essex, Suffolk' 

 and Norfolk; less so in Warwickshire, Staffordshire Derby- 

 shire Leicestershire, Herefordshire; much more commonly 

 in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Lincolnshire, aad usually in two 

 generations yet in Yorkshire apparently in one only; and 

 rather locally in Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumber- 

 land Durham. Generally distributed in marshy spots 

 in South Wales, being recorded in Glamorganshire and 

 Carmarthenshire, and found by myself rather freely in Pem- 

 brokeshire ; apparently local in North Wales. Veryjgenerally 

 distnbuted in Scotland to the districts of Moray and Argyll 

 n Ireland the Hon. Emily Lawless found it in plenty in 

 iverry on the very margin of the sea, and also in Connemara 

 Further recorded in Cork, and widely though sparingly dis- 

 puted through the middle of the countr/to Armagh A^- 



^t^t^' ItS «* ab - d * through^ntl 

 Europe, the temperate regions of Northern Europe, Spain, 



