TRIFID.E. 187 



pale-grey ; spiracular strij)e conspicuous, yellow, shaded above 

 with grey ; all the usual raised dots distinct, black ; spiracles 

 white, each placed between two black dots. (Ohas. Fenn). 



July to September on low plants generally, especially 

 partial to Chenopodium; nettle, dock, and sallow ; but feeding 

 also on shrubs and the shoots of trees, such as elm. Feeding 

 at night, and in some degree in the daytime also ; usually, 

 however, hiding itself by day on the ground, under or among 

 dense weeds, and extremely partial to roughly cultivated 

 land where it can hide under masses of potato-haulm and 

 goose-foot ; yet may at other times be seen sunning itself, 

 in the afternoon, on nettles and other plants. 



An active, vigorous larva, yet with the habit so common 

 in this group of rolling itself tightly up when touched or 

 alarmed, then soon uncoiling and travelling swiftly to a place 

 of safety. 



Pupa glossy black, not very stout, its abdominal segments 

 tapering rather gradually ; its whole surface, and especially 

 the anterior margins of the segments, roughened with a 

 sculpture of minute depressions; leg, proboscis, and wing- 

 cases of exactly equal length; anal segment terminated by 

 a rather slender projection having a bifurcated bristle. 

 Subterranean in a very brittle cocoon of earth and a little 

 silk. In this state through the winter. 



The moth may occasionally be seen sitting on a post, fence, 

 or garden wall, or on plants, and may more frequently be 

 kicked out from among herbage, in which it usually hides. 

 It is not averse to a stone coping or any other convenient 

 hiding place. At dusk it comes to sugar, flowers, honeydew 

 and other sweets, and is one of the commonest of garden 

 insects. Also abundant on farm land, waste places, the 

 banks of rivers and canals, and the banks which shut off 

 the sea in the vicinity of salt marshes. In a less degree 

 common also in woods and meadows, but apparently not 

 foud of heath-land or of hills or niountain sides. Apparently 



