TRIFID/E. 221 



upwards during May and early June. It is not among the 

 lonely mountain wild flowers, nor yet on the heather, that it 

 is found, but when the altitude is reached where the heather 

 grows thin and sparse, and the grey lichen takes its place as 

 a covering to the surface, then Anarta melanopa maybe seen 

 flying rapidly in the sunshine, or even on sunless days if the 

 air be mild. On at least two mountain-tops, where it exists 

 in large numbers, the rocks are of a peculiar grey colour, 

 which matches perfectly with the upper wings of the insect ; 

 and in those two localities I observed that it almost invari- 

 ably alighted on the rock, and was then all but invisible. 

 Very rarely did it rest on the lichen, and although the re- 

 semblance in colour of the moth to the grey lichen was very 

 great, it was not so perfect as the resemblance between the 

 moth and the rocks, the latter thus affording a more perfect 

 concealment when at rest. In other localities, where the rocks 

 are of a colour unlike the upper wings of melanopa, it invari- 

 ably, as far as I could see. settled on the lichen-covered 

 ground, and I did not see a single specimen alight on a stone 

 or rock." 



" The absence or presence of fringe-moss " (Grimmia 

 hypnoidcs, Braithwaite= Trichostomum lanuginosum, Hedwig) 

 " on the top of a hill is an interesting point. I know many 

 hill-tops up to the height of three or four thousand feet 

 clothed with short dry grass, but without fringe-moss ; on 

 those hills I never saw melanopa. On those whose summits 

 above two thousand feet are clothed wholly or partially with 

 fringe-moss I have invariably found it in greater or less 

 numbers ; yet this is not its food ! I believe that the larvae 

 require the moss to hide in, and that if found on the grass- 

 covered hills the birds would clear them off. The moth is 

 almost as invisible when at rest on this moss as on the 

 lichen." 



" I have never observed it in any locality lower down than 

 where lichen begins to take the place of other plants, and on 

 a mountain-side in May or early June, with a hot sun and a 



