TRIFID^E. 307 



papilla, and that the young larva then loops like a geometer. 

 After the first moult the second pair are more fully deve- 

 loped, but still destitute of hooklets and not used in walking, 

 and the first pair only just visible ; and it is not until 

 after the third moult that the second pair comes fully into 

 use, nor until after one more that the first pair is per- 

 fected. 



March or April to the beginning of June on dock, sallow, 

 willow, hawthorn— both leaves and flowers — Genista tinctoria 

 Sonchus. Zaduca, Arctium, Aquilegin, Salvia, and other low- 

 growing plants. 



Pupa smooth and regular in outline, tapering gently to 

 each end. the last segment of the abdomen terminating 

 rather bluntly and furnished with a knob, from which is 

 emitted a pair of vert/ fine bristle-like hooked spines ; the 

 colour of the pupa is reddish-brown and the surface glossy. 

 In a tough cocoon of silk and earth, under the surface of the 

 soil. (W. Buckler.) 



The winter is passed in the e^o:^ state. 



The moth sits in the daytime on walls, especially lovino- 

 the rough stone walls used in our more northern counties 

 instead of hedges to divide the fields, but by no means 

 despising ordinary masonry — houses, sheds, or the blocks of 

 stone in hedge-banks. It is a very curious circumstance that 

 the dark varieties of the moth by no means select dark walls, 

 but make themselves obvious where the masonrv is lio-ht 

 coloured ; nor, on the other hand, do the usual white forms 

 avoid the walls blackened by the smoke of the great 

 manufacturing towns, but even seem to prefer to sit con- 

 spicuously upon them. The same may be said of places in 

 which trees are more available than walls. The late Mr. J. 

 Sang, one of our most keen and accurate observers, pointed 

 out long ago the habit of the whitest moths in this species of 

 sitting on the blackest tree trunks, and the darker varieties 



