174 LEriDOPTERA. 



{Polygonvm aviculare). Hiding in the daytime among dead 

 leaves and herbage, and crawling up at night to feed. 



Pupa stout, rather full at the shoulders, eye and antenna 

 cases clearly marked ; surface of wing-covers glossy but 

 closely sculptured with very fine cross lines ; abdomen rather 

 rapidly tapering but anal segment swollen and suddenly 

 rounded off below the crem aster, which is broad and thick- 

 ened and finished off with a pair of long spikes so very 

 brittle that one or both are usually broken off in the dead 

 pupa, and the appearance is therefore as of one long, or short 

 bent spike. General colour deep dark purple-brown ; eye- 

 cases and anal tip black. Subterranean, enclosed in a fragile 

 cocoon of silk and earth. 



The moth loves to sit, in the daytime, ujjon palings, and 

 may sometimes be found on tree trunks, though doubtless the 

 vast majority of specimens conceal themselves among dead 

 leaves and herbage on the ground. Those which establish 

 themselves on a fence or paling in the early morning will 

 dash off in the wildest manner when the sun becomes hot, 

 and then hide upon the ground. It flies freely at night, and 

 especially in the evening and morning twilights, when it 

 visits sugar most freely, and is attracted by honeydew ; 

 mainly confined to woods, and in large woods abundant 

 throughout the greater part of England ; perhaps less so in 

 Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, and in Norfolk and Suffolk. 

 Found in similar situations in Wales to Pembrokeshire ; 

 common in some parts of Scotland, as Roxburghshire, Perth- 

 shire, the Clyde valley, Argyle, and Moray ; also found in the 

 Orkneys and Hebrides. In Ireland I have seen it from 

 Wicklow in the South-east and from Armagh and Antrim in 

 the North, and Mr. W. F. de V. Kane states that it is generally 

 common iu woods in that country. Abroad it is widely 

 distributed, South Sweden, Finland, Central Europe gener- 

 ally. Northern Italy, Dalmatia, the Ural Mountain district, 

 the mountains of Central Asia, and Tartary. Moreover in 



