CHL OEPHORID^. 1 7 7 



flies just before dusk rather wildly about the trees, and has, 

 while so engaged, the extraordinary habit of making a sharp, 

 shrill, squeaking noise. This has been repeatedly observed and 

 fully established, but some doubt exists as to whether it is 

 made by both sexes, or only by the male. Mr. A. H. Swinton 

 says: "On the skirts of a newly-leaved oak shaw I was 

 suddenly arrested by a novel and loud succession of twitters 

 in the dusk air, and on looking up saw a male and female 

 silver-lines moth which came fluttering down from the foliage 

 and were toying just in front of me." Dr. Buchanan-White 

 states : " On the evening of the 28th May, when mothing in 

 the oak wood surrounding my house, I noticed what I 

 thought was a beetle flying round a small oak, and giving 

 vent, all the time, to a sharp, quick sound very similar to 

 that produced by the longicorn beetle Asfinovms, when held 

 between the fingers. Though I failed to catch this individual, 

 I was more successful with another which was behavinsr in 

 just the same manner. When in the net the sound ceased, and 

 1 saw to my astonishment that the insect was a male silver- 

 lines. I found that a good imitation of the sound may be made 

 by rubbing the point of a knitting-needle on the closed blade 

 of a clasp-knife." The words of the late Rev. F. 0. Morris 

 are : " I was out hunting one evening very early, before dusk, 

 on a rising ground near Stoke Court, when I saw many of 

 these moths flying up and down, very fast, near or above the 

 top of an old-fashioned high hedge on the side of a wide 

 grassy lane. I could not help being struck by the stridulous 

 noise they made as they flew." Another observer writes : " I 

 was rather startled at dusk by the sudden appearance of a 

 couple of insects whirling frantically around each other, just 

 above my head, and both uttering a shrill and peculiar sound at 

 quick intervals. By a fortunate stroke of the net I secured 

 one of them, when it continued to utter its peculiar note 

 until I boxed it. It proved to be a male of Halias prasiTiana." 

 Again a very old collector says : " I had just pinned my first 

 insects taken at sugar when I heard a strange sound behind me, 

 VOL. n. M 



