TRIFID.'E. 293 



flies, usually rather late, and is readily attracted by a 

 strong light, such as that of a lighthouse, or even a gas 

 lamp on the coast, but is not known to frequent flowers 

 or to pay any attention to sugar or food of any kind. It 

 pairs before the winter, and hybernates in crevices of rocks, 

 or more usually among loose stones where these lie in dense 

 masses, resting on their undersides. There is a tradition, 

 perhaps not wholly destitute of foundation, that when the 

 peculiar habits of the insect were discovered — forty or fifty 

 years ago — some of the more energetic Lancashire collectors 

 went over into" the South Yorkshire hill districts, and, with 

 much labour, took doicn large extents of the walls of loose 

 stone which there divide the fields, and even demolished 

 one shed, finding in the course of demolition a considerable 

 number of these moths. It is further remembered that 

 rewards were offered for the discovery of the destroyers of 

 the walls, and that after this time enthusiastic collectors 

 were constrained to confine their operations to the quarries 

 on the hill sides. It is a well-established fact that female 

 moths of this species, found in such situations, and confined 

 in chip boxes in a cool place, will remain quietly alive until 

 the spring and then deposit fertile eggs. Yet hybernation 

 takes place equally in both sexes. 



Apparently found only in rocky districts, on high hills, 

 and upon the coast. I find no record in the Eastern Counties 

 or on the south-east coast, though it must surely occur ; but 

 it is found, sometimes not rarely, in the Isle of Wight, at 

 Weymouth Portland, Poole, and Chickerell, on the coast of 

 Dorset ; near Exeter, and from Torquay to Plymouth on that 

 of Devon ; at Land's End, Cornwall ; in Somerset, Gloucester- 

 shire, the Isle of Man, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cumberland ; 

 and inland in various localities in Yorkshire — commonly on 

 hills in the South-west Riding ; and once (at a gas-lamp, 

 and taken by Mr. Masefield) at Cheadle, Derbyshire. In 

 Wales it has been found near Carmarthen, and in Caldy 

 Island near Tenby, in the South, and at Colwyn Bay 



