TRIFIDM, Toy 



brown with a blackish dash in the middle of each lobe. 

 Body dull earth-brown, much dusted with dark grey or 

 black and with a very ill-defined series of darker grey, or 

 dull black, dorsal diamonds ; dorsal line threadlike, dull white ; 

 usual spots dark grey ; subdorsal line white, very indis- 

 tinct ; spiracles conspicuous, white, each placed in a triangular 

 blackish blotch ; below them is a very pale brownish-ochreous 

 spiracular stripe dusted with brown ; undersurface and sides 

 below the spiracular stripe of a slightly greener tint than 

 tiie stripe itself, and dusted with brown ; legs pale reddish- 

 brown. (C. Fenn.) 



July or August to April ; though in confinement, with 

 warmth, more rapid feeding up sometimes takes place, the 

 larva becoming full fed in September or October. So far as 

 I know, no attempt has been made to obtain eggs from 

 moths produced from such untimely specimens. This larva 

 feeds, at night only, upon knotgrass, dock, and other low 

 plants, also on bramble, and in the spring upon the opening 

 shoots of sallow. In the daytime it hides on the ground 

 under fallen leaves or moss. 



Pupa rather elongated, shining, anal extremity with a 

 long, double hooked spike, bright mahogany-red ; incisions 

 of segments, dorsal shade, and anal spike dark grey or 

 blackish. Subterranean, in a very fragile, silk-lined cocoon. 



The moth appears to hide, in the daytime, among dead 

 leaves on the ground ; it is very rarely seen at that time. 

 At dusk it flies vigorously and comes freely to sugar, settling 

 down quietly, so that its capture is perfectly easy. At this 

 time, when freshly out, it is an exquisitely beautiful insect. 

 Almost wholly confined to woods and their near neighbour- 

 hood ; and in such situations common throughout the South 

 and East of England ; less common in the West, being local 

 in Devon, occurring mostly in the South of that county, and 

 only recorded from one locality in Cornwall. Local in the 

 pther Western counties and in the Midlands ; still more so 



