13 LEPIDOPTERA. 



the middle of February, and after the emergence of the first 

 specimen, put a large number of cocoons upon a warm 

 mantelpiece, and obtained scores of moths within a few hours. 

 This insect is rarely seen alive in the perfect state. Even 

 when sitting on a hawthorn spray it so accurately mimics a dead 

 leaf twisted round the twig that it becomes almost impossible 

 of recognition. Both sexes doubtless fly late at night, but it 

 appears to be indifferent to the attraction of light, and con- 

 sequently is never observed on the wing. Most plentiful in 

 coast districts, but irregular and extremely uncertain in 

 numbers ; so abundant in some years, in its favoured districts, 

 that several nests may be found in a single hedge within a 

 few yards ; in other years, and sometimes for several in 

 succession, very scarce. With these limitations it may be 

 said to be common in all the Southern Counties, and abundant 

 in the Eastern, but very local in Devon, and apparently 

 absent from the western portion of South Wales. More 

 locally, found in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire, and very rarely in 

 North Staffordshire, where Mr. T. C. Woodforde informs me 

 of the occurrence of a single brood of larvae between Newcastle- 

 under-Lyme and Market Drayton. In the southern portion 

 of that county it is not so rare. Also found locally in the 

 South of Scotland, including several localities in the Clyde 

 district. Weaver recorded it from the neighbourhood of Ben 

 Nevis in 1845. Mr. W. Reid states that it has become 

 plentiful at Pitcaple, Aberdeenshire, in descent from larvse 

 introduced there from Essex. In Ireland it is very widely 

 distributed, being recorded from Kilkenny, Galway and 

 Londonderry — even abundant on the coast of the last-named 

 county. Abroad it is plentiful in Central and Northern 

 Europe, extending to Southern Lapland ; also found among 

 the mountains of Northern Italy, and in Turkey and Southern 

 Russia. 



