TRIF1D&. igi 



The moth frequents open fields, especialty those which are 

 roughly cultivated or lying fallow, or in which lucerne grows 

 in irregular patches. It hides among the herbage, not par- 

 ticularly selecting its food plant, but rather the coarser plants 

 which furnish better cover, such as lucerne, knapweed and 

 scabious. From these it is readily disturbed in the daytime 

 if the weather is fine, still more so if it is hot. It then flies 

 briskly away to another patch to settle down, and again rise 

 if followed, and requires careful approach and a quick hand 

 for its capture. Between sunset and dusk it flies briskly 

 of its own accord, keeping rather near to the ground. I have 

 not met with it flying at night, but that it must sometimes 

 do so is proved by the occasional though very rare capture of 

 a specimen at light. An exceedingly local species in this 

 country, almost restricted to the peculiar district of loose sand 

 known as the " Breck-sand," which lies in the west of Norfolk 

 and Suffolk and the east of Cambridgeshire ; here it is 

 moderately common, in some seasons very so, and is easily 

 secured, but although its food plant is equally abundant over 

 large extents of land throughout the country, the insect occurs 

 elsewhere only in a very rare and casual manner. Donovan 

 recorded in the beginning of this century that it had been 

 taken at Margate, Kent, but was very rare. In 1847 its 

 favourite haunt in this country seems to have been discovered 

 by Mr. J. W. Dunning, who took several specimens at Bran- 

 don, Suffolk, and the next year many more. In 1858 or 1859 

 I found a scorched specimen in a gas lamp at Dulwich in the 

 London suburbs. In 1860 it seems to have been rediscovered 

 in the " Breck-sand " district, this time in Norfolk, and from 

 that time onwards it has been constantly obtained around 

 Thetford, Brandon, Tuddenham, and other places in that dis- 

 trict, and is still to be found in apparently undiminished 

 numbers. In 1871 single specimens were obtained at Erith, 

 Kent, at the Hackney Marshes, Wandsworth, and at Lower 

 Clapton, all three places close to London, so that there must 

 in that year have been a very partial migration without 



