so LEPIDOPTERA. 



touch. When shaken out of its food-plant curls itself to one 

 side. Feeds chiefly at dusk and at night, resting in the day- 

 time. On Prunus spinosa (blackthorn) from April to the 

 beginning of June, very fond of the young shoots. 



Pupa obese, blunt-headed and hump-backed, and has a 

 medio-dorsal series of five rather conspicuous vrarts. 

 Attached by a belt and by the anal extremity. (Newman.) 



Mr. Hawes says : " Differs from those of the other species 

 in being more indented at the thorax and having pairs of 

 points along the back, but no hairs. It is black, with a dirty 

 white patch on the back behind the thorax. Spins up on the 

 top shoots of the young blackthorns." 



The late Mr. E. Newman tells with some humour the 

 history of the discovery of this species in this country in 1828 ; 

 how the last species had previously been called prani here ; 

 and how a Mr. Seaman, of Ipswich, captured a number of 

 specimens, which he referred to that species, at Monkswood, 

 Hunts, and sold them to a member of the Entomological Club, 

 who in turn gave specimens to Mr. Newman ; how he compared 

 these with his previous specimens, noticed their distinctions, 

 compared them with Continental figures, and discovered 

 that the previously known insect was xxoi pruni,hut iv-alhum, 

 and that the genuine pruni had only then been met with ; 

 also the eagerness with which he communicated his discovery 

 to Mr. J. F. Stephens ; and finally, how, when the captor heard 

 that he had found a novelty, the locality was promptly 

 transferred from Hunts to Yorkshire. Needless to say, it 

 never has been taken in Yorkshire, but ]\Ionkswood con- 

 tinues to be one of its very few localities ; indeed, it seems 

 to be almost confined to three or four of the midland counties. 

 Mr. Herbert Goss, who has found it at Barnwell Wold, and in 

 other wooded districts of Northamptonshire, at intervals, for 

 more than twenty years past, says that it is fond of sitting on 

 the flowers of privet (Ligustrum) and Viburnum lantana, in 

 the woods, and sometimes is to be found in numbers. Its 



