TRIFID^. 395 



darker, ocelli black; plate on the second segment light 

 brown, divided in the middle by a paler line ; on the anal 

 segment is a semicircular shining pale brown plate ; colour 

 of the body light green, a rather broad oval deeper green 

 marking on each segment forms a dorsal pattern edged on 

 each side by a purplish-pink stripe; spiracles dusky-white 

 ringed with black ; under-surface and legs pale green. Or, 

 the whole surface above the spiracles deep green, with slender 

 dull-red dorsal and subdorsal lines, and the under-surface and 

 legs light green. Or, pale yellowish-green, with pale red 

 dorsal and subdorsal lines, each faintly edged with blackish 

 atoms, undersurface and legs palsr grey. 



September (?) to April or May on grasses, Festuca 

 armidinacea, Dactijlis glomerata, Holcus mollis, Aira cccspitosa, 

 and probably many others, also on Luzula pilosa, living 

 within the stem of the grass, and feeding on the unopened 

 flowers. Its presence may be detected by the small round 

 hole near the tip of the grass-shoot from which the excrement 

 is extruded. Mr. E. R. Bankes states that it even inhabits 

 flower-stems of Iris fostidissima. 



Pupa uudescribed. 



The moth hides in the daytime under copings of walls, or in 

 a chink of any kind in a wall, post, or fence ; but in the vast 

 majority of cases among grass and herbage on the ground. 

 At night it comes eagerly to sugar, honeydew, the flowers of 

 Glyccria Jiiiitans, or anything sweet, and I have found it 

 commonly, late at night, sitting on the leaves of the great 

 masses of reeds in the fens. It is one of our most abundant 

 Noctua\ occurring in plenty every where throughout the British 

 Isles. Moreover, all its more striking varieties seem to be 

 equally universal. Abroad it abounds throughout Central 

 Europe, the temperate portions of Northern Europe, Italy, 

 Turkey, Southern and Eastern Russia, Armenia, Asia Minor, 

 India, and Japan ; also in Canada, and throughout the United 

 States, to Vancouver Island, Colorado, and New Mexico, 



