ZYG^NIDM. 123 



a trailing stem of the Orowbeny {Empctrnm nifjrum), and 

 another was subsequently found attached to the same plant, 

 but there is no evidence that the larvee had fed on this plant. 

 Dr. Buchanan White found cocoons attached to stems of 

 Erica and to grasses. 



A mountain species, excessively local here. Originally 

 taken by Dr. F. Buchanan White and Professor Traill on 

 the mountains at Braemar, Aberdeenshire, in 1871, on an 

 elevated spot from 2000 to 3000 feet above the sea level. 

 Dr. White says: "The locality is an ancient shore of the 

 glacial sea, and the same agencies which deposited there 

 v9,rious boulders and arctic plants, probably, at the same 

 time, brought the Zygccna. The insect is extremely local 

 in its habits, for not a specimen was to be found except in 

 one grassy and rushy place about 200 yards long and 50 

 broad ; in this spot the moths were not uncommon, flying 

 about in the sunshine, sitting on flowers of Gnaphalium 

 dioicum, or hanging on the stems of grasses." Mr. W. H. 

 Tugwell has found it on ground which is not grassy, but 

 upon "crisp heath and dwarf Azalea, a few inches high 

 and grey with lichen." He says that it utilises every gleam 

 of sunshine, flying as soon as the sun comes out, even after 

 a cold hard rain, though there may be only a gleam for a 

 few minutes. Its colour fades rapidly during life. The 

 insect is still taken at Braemar year by year by those who 

 have access to this remote district, but no other locality has 

 yet been recorded in these islands. The varietal names 

 Vanadis and sidjochracea have been applied to it, but the 

 forms pass quite insensibly one into the other, the females 

 showing the yellower variations. A slight deterioration seems 

 to have taken place in our examples, in that the fore wings 

 are rather narrower than in continental specimens. Abroad 

 it is a plentiful mountain species, found in the higher Alps, 

 the Pyrenees, the mountains of Sweden and Norway, and in 

 Lapland. 



