13© LEPIDOPTERA. 



the anal segment, which, however, is very abruptly cut off 

 behind ; colour semi-transparent pale green or yellow-green ; 

 dorsal line slender, white ; subdorsal similar ; spiracular 

 stripe broad, white ; spiracles black ; raised dots white, with 

 a dark hair. 



June and July, and doubtless in April, but we have little 

 information ; on cabbage, turnip, nettle, lettuce, celery, 

 tomato, and other herbaceous plants. 



Pupa yellow-brown, enclosed in a slight cocoon. Not 

 further described. 



The moth flies in the daytime about flowers, or if the 

 weather is dull rests head downwards upon a plant or in a 

 tuft of rushes ; at dusk it flies more freely, and while on the 

 wing can only be discriminated from P. gamma by its greyer 

 colour. It is very little known here, and is apparently one of 

 our rarest species, but there are rumours that it is not so 

 scarce in the far west of England. The first specimen recorded 

 in this country was captured flying about blossoms of red 

 valerian by Mr. D'Orville in his garden at Exeter in August 

 1868. The next was taken by Miss Carne, of Penzance, 

 hovering at flowers in her garden in May 1869, and was 

 recognised by Mr. W. E. Jeffrey, in whose collection it still 

 is. Of further captures in the same district, in both imago 

 and larva state, definite information has been refused. The 

 third recorded specimen was taken in Dorsetshire by Mr. 

 Nevinson in 1885, and the fourth at the Isle of Portland, in 

 the same county, in September 1888, by Colonel Partridge, 

 to whose lamp it was attracted while he was sugaring. In 

 1894 Mrs. Richardson found two larva? in the same locality, 

 from which the moths were reared early in September ; and 

 in the same year Mr. C. A. Briggs was allowed to exhibit 

 two of the mysterious Cornish examples. The last of which 

 I have any reliable information is a specimen taken sitting 

 upon a fence at Norbiton, Surrey, in May 1896, by Mr. Percy 

 Richards ; but there is a sj^ecimen in Dr. Mason's collection 



