-2 1 2 LEPID OP TERA . 



with, a darker dorsal shade ; aual segment and incisions 

 shaded with grey. Subterranean, not in a cocoon. (C. Fenn.) 

 In this condition through the winter, and one of the most 

 familiar objects turned up by the spade when used for 

 digging in a garden. 



The moth sits in the daytime squeezed close into a cranny 

 of a wall or under the coping, on posts, fences, railings, any- 

 where about gardens, and of course among herbage on the 

 ground. It flies at night, comes freely — too freely — to 

 flowers, also to sugar and anything else of a saccharine 

 character. It is one of the most universally abundant of our 

 native species, and is found in woods, heaths, meadows, lanes, 

 everywhere ; above all, in gardens and cultivated land, but is 

 not very plentiful in fens and marshes. Found all over the 

 United Kingdom, from the Scilly Isles to the Orkneys and 

 Shetlands ; but in some of the more mountainous portions of 

 Scotland not very common. Abroad, it is abundant almost 

 all over the Continent of Europe, Asia Minor, Armenia, 

 Eastern Siberia, the mountainous regions of India, Japan, 

 and some parts of North and South America, where also a 

 more uniform dark variety is known as 31. ducta. 



3. M. persicariee, L. — Expanse H to If inch. Fore 

 wings bluish-black ; subterminal line faintly yellow ; reni- 

 form stigma large, brightly white, with a faint brownish 

 central cloud ; hind wings dusky white, liind margin broadly 

 black-brown. 



Antennae of the male simple, finely ciliated, dark- 

 brown, blackish toward the base; palpi strongly tufted, 

 deep black ; head brovvnish-black ; collar similar, rather 

 more tinged with reddish, but edged above with deep black ; 

 remainder of thorax bluish-black, crested on the top and at 

 the back, the space between the tufts of the crests being 

 reddish chocolate ; fascicles rather small, smoky-white ; 

 basal segments of the abdomen covered with long smoky- 

 white hair-scales ; the remainder smoky-black, dusted with 



