BOMBYCID^. 41 



Pupa thick, rounded, obtuse in front and rather blunt 

 behind; brown. In a spindle-shaped cocoon of tough yellow 

 silk, attached to a thick grass-culm or other stem or stick, 

 usually near the ground, but often quite conspicuously. This 

 tough cocoon is lined within with looser softer silk. It is 

 strongly fixed to the culm, or stem, remains attached long 

 after the departure of the moth, and in some districts is 

 quite one of the common objects of the hedge banks. 



The moth flies only at night ; the male with great vigour 

 after dark, and till midnight, or later, coming with extra- 

 ordinary persistence and determination to a strong light. 

 The powerful lamps used for collecting in the fens attract 

 these moths in such numbers that rarer species are beaten 

 off, and some method of abating the nuisance has to be found. 

 This is not easy, since (like Ardia cajci) they are quite in- 

 different to a hard pinch, and it is almost impossible even to 

 crush them on the soft, wet, fen mud. The female rarely 

 comes to light, and is not often seen on the wing ; being 

 heavy, her flight is rather slow, and her time appears to be 

 occupied in sticking her eggs, a few at a time, in conspicuous, 

 irregular clusters, on the culms of the taller grasses. 



Both sexes may be found sitting on hedge banks, or 

 hanging to dead grass stems among the bushes, in the day- 

 time, but may easily be passed over as withered leaves, the 

 long curved second line of the fore wings closely resembling 

 the midrib of a leaf, while the colour in each sex, the shading 

 in the male, and the lines on the nervures in the female, 

 greatly enhance the deception, but the female is decidedly the 

 more conspicuous in such a situation. 



Common in lanes almost everywhere, and on grassy banks, 

 also plentiful on sea sandhills, but not often found in fields 

 except close to the hedges. Very plentiful in the south of 

 England, though less so in the extreme west of Wales, scarce 

 in some parts of the Midlands, but found in most suitable 

 places throughout the country to Yorkshire and Lancashire 



