194 LEPIDOPTERA. 



brown, freckled with darker. Body reddish chocolate with 

 an ill-defined row of grey dashes on each side of the dorsal 

 line, which is slender and white ; spiracular line broad, 

 slightly paler than the ground colour, but inconspicuous ; 

 spiracles white, edged with black ; undersurface unicoloroas, 

 a paler shade of the ground colour. When young, green or 

 brown with a conspicuous pure white spiracular stripe 

 (Chas. Fenn). 



June to August on Myrica gale, heather, willow, sallow, 

 and doubtless on low plants. In confinement it will subsist 

 upon lettuce ; feeding at night. Mr. Fenn says that it rests 

 during the day on the topmost twigs of its food plant. 



Pupa glabrous brown, with a very broad rugose tip to the 

 abdomen and two incurved spines, very distant, at the 

 extremity ; each abdominal segment has a ring of strong 

 rough spines, somewhat similar to those of the goat moth 

 (Edward Newman). This structure is somewhat remarkable, 

 since it aj^pears certain that, though the larva changes to 

 pupa underground, it forms no cocoon. 



The moth sits in the daytime upon palings or the trunks 

 of trees, especially fir or birch trees, or where trees are absent 

 is content to rest upon outcropping rocks and detached 

 blocks of stone. Occasionally it is induced to fly in hot 

 sunshine, and Mr. Kane has noticed it to frequent flowers at 

 such a time. At night it is readily attracted to sugar and 

 sallow-bloom. Comparatively a northern and certainly hill- 

 frequenting species, the most southern localities of which I 

 have any knowledge being the Black Mountain in Hereford- 

 shire ; Sutton Park, near Birmingham, which seems to be the 

 highest point in that district ; and Cannock Chase, Stafford- 

 shire ; northward of this it is more widely distributed on the 

 hills of North Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, 

 Westmoreland and Cumberland ; but strange to say I can 

 find no record in Wales. This surely arises from absence of 

 observation. 



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