328 LEPIDOPTERA. 



row of red-brown oblique spots uniting into «t- lino on the 

 hinder segments, and a broad red-brown spiracular stripe. 

 Behind the tuft on the twelfth segment is a red bar, and a 

 white one across the anal segment below it ; legs and prolegs 

 reddish. When young the body is more reddish-brown, with 

 the dorsal stri])e broadly blackish and white, interrupted by 

 the tufts of hair. 



July, September, to end of May, in two generations, the 

 second hybernating. On oak, sallow, hawthorn, blackthorn, 

 hazel, beech, bramble. Rather irregular in its habits. Mr. 

 W. Machin obtained a batch of eggs at the end of June, 

 which hatched in the middle of July ; of the larvae a portion 

 fed rapidly up and produced rather small moths in August 

 and September; others fed more slowly until the middle of 

 October, when they also spun up, and produced moths of 

 larger size in November ; the remainder of the brood fed still 

 more slowly and hybernated. This state is undergone on 

 twigs of the food-plant near the ground, but with very little 

 protection. The larvo3 feed in the daytime in the bright 

 sunshine. 



Pupa very stout, swollen in the middle ; back covered with 

 numerous greyish-brown hairs ; colour shining dark bistre- 

 brown, the incisions dull orange. In a small round thin 

 cocoon of silk and felted larval hairs to which it is affixed by 

 a terminal hook. The cocoon is placed wirhin a ball of leaves 

 drawn together by the larva. (C. Fenn.) 



The male moth flies in the sunshine with a swift strong 

 action. So far as is known it does not fly at all at night. 

 The female remains upon the cocoon from which she has 

 emerged, and when fertilised lays the whole of her eggs — 

 from four to five hundred— closely side by side lapon the 

 tough cocoon, covering them carefully over with her scales- 

 A very local and uncommon species in this country. Formerly 

 — in 1852 and long after — it was plentiful upon Wimbledon 

 Common and in Coombe Wood, both near London, but has 



