398 LEPIDOPTERA. 



of the broad central band, and in the tinge of brown over the 

 grey-white ground colour, but Dr. Mason possesses a specimen 

 of which the ground colour is wholly dark grey, and the 

 central band tinged with brown. 



On the wing in August and the beginning of September. 



Larva unknown in this country. Entomologists living in 

 the districts in which it is most plentiful assure me that they 

 have searched for it often, by day and by night, but in vain. 

 Hofmann, however, furnishes a description : " Yellow- 

 brown ; dorsal line yellowish edged with black ; side lines 

 dark grey-brown shaded with black above and below ; 

 spiracles black ; under-surface yellow-grey ; head brown with 

 two black arched stripes. In May on grasses." But his 

 figure is quite dispi'oportionately large for the size of the 

 present insect, and suggests some doubt as to its accuracy. 



Pupa undescribed, subterranean. 



The moth sits, not unfrequently, squeezed into a crevice 

 of bark on the trunks of oak-trees in the woods which it 

 frequents, and from its colour would be very conspicuous 

 but for its not distant resemblance, in that position, to the 

 excrement of a bird; but it hides in far greater numbers 

 among herbage and dead leaves on the ground, whence it 

 may be seen at dusk to rise almost from under the feet of 

 the passer-by. At this time it comes freely to sugar on the 

 oak trunks. Exceedingly local in this country, and, so far as 

 I know, only found in any abundance in the woods of South 

 Yorkshire, especially those around Sheffield, Rotherham, 

 Wakefield, and Barnsley ; also taken in Cumberland, and 

 formerly in woods in Norfolk. Dr. Buchanan White in- 

 formed me that it had been found in the South of Scotland, 

 in the districts of Clyde and Tay, but I know of no recent 

 records there. Abroad also it is a local species, but is found 

 in some parts of Germany, Livonia, Galicia, the Ural Moun- 

 tain district, and elsewhere in Russia. 



