NOLID^. 



'95 



September to June, hybernatiug while small, aud in the 

 spring feeding on the young shoots of the food plants just 

 as they spring from the ground. On Dewberry (JRuhus ca'sius), 

 Raspberry (E. idccufi), Strawberry {Fragaria vcsca), Potentilla 

 rcptans, and even Eupatorium cannabinum. 



Pupa half an inch long, cylindrical, and of nearly uniform 

 width throughout, tapering a little at the anal extremity. 

 The head is bluntly rounded, and the eye- and antenna - 

 cases prominent. Colour of the dorsal surface deep reddish- 

 brown, becoming gradually darker towards the head, which 

 is nearly black ; abdominal divisions rather paler than the 

 ground colour. Ventral surface paler brown ; eye-cases black, 

 and the antenna-cases margined all round with black. (G. T. 

 Porritt.) In a spindle-shaped cocoon fastened to a stem or 

 culm of grass, formed of silk mixed with bits of the surface 

 and the longer hairs of the larva, and looking exactly like a 

 brown knot of the grass or thickened piece of stem. Mr. 

 Tugwell says : " They nibble off pieces of the substance they 

 attach themselves to, so as to imitate its appearance, and at 

 first make up an open-sided affair just like a boat, and when 

 all is completed to their liking pull together the two sides 

 and join them into a spindle-shaped cocoon. They may be 

 even seen to get out of their working in order to obtain the 

 nibbled bark to finish with if they cannot reach far enough 

 by merely stretching themselves out," 



The moth hides in the day time among low herbage, and 

 by close scrutiny may occasionally be seen sitting, head down- 

 wards, on a stem of dewberiy near the ground ; it may also, 

 in warm weather, occasionally be disturbed and induced to fly 

 in the afternoon. On warm evenings it flies at early dusk, 

 but when the weather is chilly somewhat later, darting about 

 with a sharp, lively action. It was first taken in this country 

 in 1859 at Chattenden Roughs, a large wood near Rochester 

 in Kent. For years the locality was kept a secret, but about 



