I30 LEPIDOPTERA. 



moths. But with the very first autumn storm it disappears, 

 going into hybernation, perhaps in hollow trees, though very 

 little is known of it in this respect, and so remains until the 

 first sunny days of spring, when it reappears, and may be 

 found generally in warm hollows and sunny lanes and roads, 

 sitting on the ground, with wide open wings, enjoying the 

 warmth. At no time in its life does it seem to be very 

 strongly attracted by flowers, though it has been observed 

 to frequent the massed blossoms of large Scdurns, from which, 

 surely, but little honey would be obtained. Mr. N. P. Fenwick 

 records, in the Entomologists' Monthhi Magaxine, that it has 

 the power of producing a sound with its wings which he 

 likens to the faint rustling of silk. 



With regard to its hybernation, the late Mr. H. Doubleday 

 wrote, forty yeai's ago, as follows: — "You ask where Poli/- 

 chloros, cfcc, conceal themselves ; I reply, in crevices of old 

 trees, sheds, or any convenient places they can find. Last 

 winter some large stacks of beech faggots, which had been 

 loosely stacked up in our Forest the preceding spring, with 

 the dead leaves adhering to them, were taken down and 

 carted away, and among these were many scores of To, Urticce, 

 and Polycliloros." 



A somewhat local species, rather preferring the neighbour- 

 hood of woods (although the larvfe are nearly always found 

 on trees outside), and widely distributed in the South. At 

 one time very common immediately around London and in 

 many other places from which it has now partly or wholly 

 disappeared ; but in suitable places, still to be found, not 

 rarely, in the southern counties, from Kent to Somerset, but 

 very scarce in Devon ; fairly common in the eastern counties 

 and the midlands as far as Northamptonshire and Warwick- 

 shire ; scarce in Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, 

 Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire ; less so in 

 Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and North Wales. Usually scarce 

 in South Wales, apparently not observed farther west than 

 Glamorganshire and the favoured district of Kidwelly, Carmar- 



