LIPARID^. 307 



before night, wheu, if at all, she takes flight. It is extremely- 

 doubtful whether this species is now an actual living 

 inhabitant of these islands. In the first half of the present 

 century it inhabited the fens of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and 

 Huntingdonshire, and was sometimes to be found in great 

 abundance ; but it is not clear that this was more than 

 a temporary extension of the species to this island. Curtis's 

 remarks (about 1830) are as follows: " At the time Donovan 

 wrote (1792) these moths were so rare that he could not 

 obtain British specimens to figure in his work ; it is not easy, 

 therefore, to conceive the joy I experienced, when a boy, on 

 finding the locality of the Gypsy Moth. After a long walk I 

 arrived at the extensive marshes of Hoi-nine- in Norfolk 

 having no other guide to the spot than the beds of Myrica 

 gale ; and on finding the beds of that shrub, which grows 

 freely there, the gaily-coloured caterpillars first caught my 

 sight. They were in every stage of growth, some of them 

 being as large as a swan's quill. I also soon discovered the 

 moths, which are so totally difierent in colour as to make 

 a tyro doubt their being legitimate partners ; the large loose 

 cocoons were likewise very visible, and on a diligent search I 

 found bundles of the eggs covered with the fine down from 

 the abdomen of the females, which is said to be scratched ofi 

 by the males, to protect them as soon as they are laid. With 

 eggs, caterpillars, chrysalides, and moths, I soon returned, 

 enjoying unmixed delight in my newly-gained acquisitions, 

 and looking forward with pleasure to the feeding and rearing 

 ray stock the following year." — " British Entomology," p. 767. 

 There is something so genuine and hearty about this account 

 that I reproduce it exactly, though it is hardly necessary to 

 explain that the male is not so well trained as to undertake 

 the office of covering the eggs with down — this is the work 

 of the female. The Kev. E. C. F. Jenkins, writing in 1859, 

 says : " Thirty years ago the fens about Whittlesea Mere were 

 most interesting .... the moth L. dispar was very plenti- 

 ful." The late Mr. H. Doubleday recorded that it disappeared 



