LIFE-HISTORY OF ASTEROSCOPUS NUBECULOSUS. 57 
fresh and salt-water fishing is also to be had. One evening I 
accompanied some friends out to fish in the Sound of Jura, and 
we had hardly commenced work when a large whale was seen 
making its way up the sound. It was the first time that I had 
seen a “real live whale,” and need not add that the sight was one 
which I shall not soon forget. 
T intend going to Tayvallich again this season, and hope to 
have a much larger list of captures to report. Should any of 
your readers intend visiting this district in July this year, I shall 
be pleased to hear from them, and shall be glad to give the benefit 
of such little knowledge which I may possess of the district. 
78, Gloucester Street, Kingston, Glasgow, January 23, 1886. 
LIFE-HISTORY OF ASTEROSCOPUS NUBECULOSUS, Esp. 
By Herr AMELANG.* 
APPEARING in March, Asteroscopus (Petasta) nubeculosus is one 
of the first moths of the new year. On looking at my diaries, I 
find that from 1881 to 1885 I took twenty-eight males and twenty- 
four females. In fair weather the moth sits, about breast high, 
on old birch trees, squeezing into clefts in the bark, in the warm 
rays of the March sun; its resemblance to the grey-green cracked 
bark of the tree probably protecting it from attacks of birds. 
In March, 1885, I was out one cold stormy afternoon, and could 
not find a single specimen, though I searched carefully. I had 
looked several times through the same birch wood, always 
expecting to find the moth breast high on the stems of the trees, 
when at last I espied a specimen close to the ground, amongst the 
cracked bark; I at once searched farther, and captured nine 
of them in half an hour. The moths had deceived me this 
time; not Jiking the cold north-east wind, they had ensconced 
themselves close to the ground where they were sheltered by the 
long grass. 
In 1883, on the afternoon of March 21st, when there was 
a strong east wind, a temperature of minus 8° Réaumur 
(14° Fahrenheit), and the ground was frozen about two 
inches below the surface, nine specimens, four males and five 
* Translated from the Berlin ‘Entomologische Nachrichten,’ February, 1886. 
ENTOM.—MARCH, 1886. I 
