TRIFID.^. 39' 



np a tree-trunk to find a suitable place. In default of loose 

 bark it will enter dead stems of burdock, thistle, or teazle, or 

 spin up in any concealed situation, the silk of its cocoon 

 being tough and adhering firmly to surrounding substances. 



The moth hides by day among grasses and other herbage ; 

 at dusk it flies in damp meadows, the edges of moist woods, 

 fens and marshes, and is readily attracted by sugar and 

 honeydevv. At one time it was abundant in certain years 

 in Hackney Marshes in the east of London, but has now- 

 become quite scarce there ; always rather local, and also 

 uncertain in its appearance — abundant one year, scarce for 

 several more — but found in suitable places in Sussex, Surrey, 

 Hants, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Berks, 

 Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire — sometimes very plentifully in 

 the fens — Norfolk, Suffolk, Leicestershire ; but apparently 

 rare or absent in most of the midland counties, certainly rare 

 in Staffordshire ; more frequent in Herefordshire, Cheshire, 

 Lancashire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire ; less so in Westmore- 

 land, Cumberland and Durham. Probably in suitable places 

 in all parts of Wales, since it is not scarce in Pembrokeshire ; 

 also found in Aberdeenshire and various other districts of 

 Scotland, in the west extending to Argyle and the Orkneys. 

 Scarce in Ireland, but taken near Dublin and in Wicklow, 

 Louth, Westmeath, and Armagh. Abroad it seems to have a 

 rather restricted range through a portion of Central Europe 

 and the Ural ■Mountain district. 



4. A.oculea, Gn. ; didyina,>SVa(/.i^/. Cat. — Fore wings short 

 and blunt, pale brown, red-brown, drab, umbreous, or black- 

 brown, marbled all over with darker, or else having a darker 

 central band which is angulated at its outer margin ; reniform 

 stigma white, yellow, or pale brown, often conspicuous ; hind 

 wings smoky-brown. (No satisfactorily concise description 

 of this, always variable species, is possible.) 



Antennae of the male simple, minutely ciliated, brown ; 

 palpi small, narrowly tufted, brown, apical joint small, black- 



