4 LEPIDOPTERA. 



bark of branches and trunks of trees, which from colour and 

 spreading hairs they resemble very accurately, clinging 

 closely and very tightly, and lying often perfectly straight. 



Pupa short and stout, rich red-brown and rather glossy. 

 In a short ovate dark grey-brown cocoon which seems 

 extremely small for the size of the larva; among rubbish 

 or leaves on the ground, or more frequently just below the 

 surface of the ground at the foot of a tree. The Rev. Joseph 

 Greene says : " Sometimes it will be found firmly glued to the 

 inside of a piece of loose bark, or to the tree itself ; at others 

 spun up tightly among decayed leaves, dead grass, &c." 



The male moth flies actively late at night, and may often 

 be seen dashing in the wildest manner round a gas lamp at 

 from 10 P.M. to midnight, on a mild winter night, when it 

 looks more like a circling beetle than a moth. After mid- 

 night it settles down quietly on the gas lamp till towards the 

 morning. Probably, if not deluded by a light, it also has a 

 period of rest between the flights. The female is rarely 

 observed on the wing, but certainly flies late at night. It is 

 an exceedingly hardy species ; the male has been seen on the 

 wing during moderately severe frost, and a specimen has 

 even been found enveloped in ice, and successfully thawed, 

 when it perfectly recovered. Not especially attached to 

 woods, though perhaps most common in such situations, but 

 found among trees about fields, roadsides, open parks, and 

 the suburbs of towns, and very widely distributed. Plentiful 

 in Devon and moderately common throughout the Southern, 

 Eastern, and Western counties, and South Wales, and, more 

 locally, through the Midland and Northern counties to York- 

 shire and Cumberland. In Scotland still more local, but 

 recorded from Roxburgh, Dunoon, Troon, Inverurie, Fyvie, 

 Pitcaple and elsewhere in Aberdeenshire, and perhaps exist- 

 ing in most suitable districts, to Moray and Argyle. Pro- 

 bably in all fairly wooded localities in Ireland, since it is 

 recorded from Dublin, Wicklow, Kerry, Galway, Tyrone, 



