3o8 LEPIDOPTERA. 



there about 1836, and had not been seen since. Also that 

 when he was at Yaxley Fen in 1839, " the larvae swarmed on 

 the gale and dwarf sallows. In 1846 it was still common 

 there. In 1845 Mr. F. Bond found it abundantly at the same 

 place and at Holme and Kamsey Fens, and about the same 

 time it was found by the Rev. L. Jenyns at Burwell Fen. 

 No later records of its appearance in any numbers in this 

 country seem to exist, and it must have disappeared almost 

 entirely from the fen districts about 1850. These fen 

 specimens seem to have been of large size, and of so vigorous 

 a race that their descendants are claimed to have been 

 continued, brood after brood, to quite a recent period. If so, 

 they soon fell off in size, but the numbers of eggs and 

 larva3 obtained were so great that again and again batches 

 were turned out in various parts of the country, including 

 their old fen haunts, but apparently without any effect in re- 

 establishing the species. In 1872 Dr. F. D. Wheeler found 

 two larvae on hawthorn at Monkswood, Hunts ; another was 

 found near Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, by the Rev. G. H. 

 Raynor about 1875 ; a few more were found on hawthorn in 

 Warwickshire in 1885; and several other captures of larvae, 

 more or less dubious, are on record. In 1870 a female moth 

 was taken, sitting on a birch trunk in the New Forest, by Mr. 

 A. Ficklin, and Mr. W. Holland captured a male flying in a 

 wood near Odiham, Hants ; and in 1887 a female was obtained 

 sitting on an oak in the New Forest. Two female specimens 

 are recorded from Brampton Wood, Huntingdon, about 1870, 

 and other solitary captures appear to have been made, 

 at different times, at Wigmore Wood and Chattenden, Kent ; 

 but in all these cases there has been room for doubt whether 

 the specimens captured were genuinely wild, or the result of 

 larvae turned out in the hope of establishing a colony. 



Abroad it is found, often most abundantly, almost all over 

 the Continent of Europe, Northern Africa and Northern and 

 Western Asia. From Japan a large form is obtained — and 

 called Japonia — and a small one, named umhrosa — neither of 



