258 LEPIDOPTERA. 



which it/ frequents. Apparently the more level portions of 

 the shore away from the rocks, although Silene may be abun- 

 dant, have no attraction for this fastidious insect. 



So far as any record is preserved, the first capture of this 

 species in these islands was of a specimen which was said to 

 have been taken (no date given) in Yorkshire. It was for 

 many years in the collection of Mr. Bentley, and after his 

 death for many more years in that of Mr. Edwin Shepherd, 

 who exhibited it at a meeting of the Entomological Society of 

 London after the re-discovery of the species. That it was a 

 British specimen seemed to be proved by its identical colour- 

 ing, but whether the true locality of capture was given is 

 open to doubt. In 1866 the late Mr. Edward Hopley a well- 

 known and much lamented artist, Mr. C. S. Gregson, and 

 apparently a collector from Oldham, all captured specimens 

 in the Isle of Man ; and about the same date Mr. Warren 

 Wright secured a larva at Tramore, co. Waterford, Ireland, 

 from which in the following year he reared the moth. From 

 that time till the present it has constantly been obtained, 

 both in the perfect and the larva state, in the Isle of Man, 

 and apparently in undiminished numbers ; indeed the nature 

 of the locality is such as absolutely to forbid the feats of 

 greedy and unscrupulous collecting such as have tended so 

 greatly to reduce the numbers of many more accessible local 

 species. In Ireland no further capture of this insect seems 

 to have been effected (since it is not found in that special 

 resort of the Dianthoeciae, the Hill of Howth) until 1883, 

 when it was again taken at Tramore by Mr. W. F. de V. Kane, 

 who so well followed up this success as to meet with it in 

 eleven other stations along the south coast of Ireland, among 

 which are Mine Head, Bally cottin, Roche's Point, the Old 

 Head of Kinsale, Galley Head, the cliffs near Glandore, 

 Dursey Island, and the isles known as the Blaskets. I know 

 of no locality for this species in England, Wales or Scotland, 

 yet have little doubt that it will some day be found on the 

 rocky coasts of at least the last two countries. Abroad it is 



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