66 THE MOTHS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



spun up between leaves, usually dead ones, is blackish brown 

 with a violet bloom upon it. 



The moths are on the wing in May and June in an early 

 season, but not until June and July in a backward one. They may 

 be sometimes found resting by day on the stems of small trees 

 or even bushes. "In fact, anything," Mr. Holland says, "which 

 stands upright in a beech wood will do, so that it is not too 

 large." The blackish form of the moth is so like a knot on a 

 stem that it is easily overlooked. There is sometimes a second 

 emergence in August. Possibly those caterpillars found during 

 the latter part of September in some favourable years are from 

 eggs deposited by moths emerging in early August, and the off- 

 spring of May parents. 



The species is widely distributed, but not often common, over 

 the Midland, Southern, and Eastern Counties of England. It 

 seems to flourish chiefly in beech woods, and is perhaps more 

 frequent in parts of Berkshire, Bucks, and Oxfordshire, than 

 elsewhere, but it is not uncommon in some seasons in the New 

 Forest. It has been reported from Swansea in Wales, and once 

 from Selby, Yorkshire. In Ireland it is exceedingly rare, and is 

 not known to occur in Scotland. The range abroad extends 

 through Central Europe, northward to Sweden, southward to 

 Spain and Portugal, and eastward to Armenia, Ussuri, and 

 Japan. 



The Dusky Marbled Brown {Gluphisia craiatd). 



Only three authenticated British examples are known of this 

 dingy grey-brown moth (Plate 28, Fig. 3). The earliest intimation 

 we have of the occurrence of this species in England is the follow- 

 ing record by the late Mr. Henry Doubleday in the Entotnologist^ 

 vol. i. p. 156: " Chaonia crenata. The first British specimen of 

 this insect was taken in Ongar Park Wood, in June, 1839 ; a 

 second in the same place, in June of the present year. Both 



