TRIFID^. 197 



verse brown stripe ; hind margin dark brown ; cilia mixed, 

 brown and white. Legs brown, body and leg tufts whitish- 

 brown. 



Variable in the ground colour through almost all shades of 

 grey, greyish-white, grey-brown, and bluish-grey ; and in the 

 distinctness of the dark markings from black to brown of all 

 shades of umbreous. The pale markings also are often 

 clouded and sometimes almost obscured. In the collection of 

 Mr. S. J. Capper are forms ranging from the palest grey- 

 brown, almost devoid of markings, to the darkest smoky -grey, 

 or to those which have all the darker markings black ; and 

 one specimen of a pale-grey has a broad dirty-white blotch 

 where the dark markings are usually situated. Dr. Mason 

 has one in which the reniform stigma and a large portion of 

 the adjoining usually dark area are occupied by a large white 

 blotch extending to the costa. Another form has a large 

 ovate white blotch near the anal angle. One obtained at 

 Ipswich, by the Rev. E. N. Bloomfield, is so filled up with, 

 black that the usually distinct central bar is obscured. 

 Another taken at Armagh by the Rev. W. F. Johnson is so 

 curiously mottled with grey as to bear a considerable resem- 

 blance to H. glauca. 



On the wing from the end of May to July. Abroad a 

 second generation is said to occur in August. 



Larva stout, rather flattened, transversely wrinkled, con- 

 siderably attenuated to each end ; head small, rounded, pale 

 brown, with a black dash on the point of each lobe ; on the 

 second and anal segments are shining horny plates ; body 

 furnished with a few inconspicuous pale hairs, dull brown ; a 

 very faint threadlike white dorsal line is situated in a dark 

 greyish-brown shade which forms a series of diamond shapes 

 or pentagonal blotches along the back ; subdorsal line white, 

 threadlike, more distinct than the dorsal, edged above with a 

 row of dark grey or blackish dashes ; spiracular stripe greyish - 

 ochreous, shaded above with dark greyish-brown ; usual spots 



