NO TODONTID^. 8 9 



blotch, are clouded with dark rust colour and the whole dorsal 

 blotch is edged with interrupted dark red-brown, and broadly 

 margined externally with yellow. Spiracles dark reddish, 

 legs and prolegs tinged with red ; under surface with a dark 

 brown line running from between the last pair of prolegs to 

 the anus, having on each side a reddish patch edged with 

 yellow. Tails reddish, darker at the tips, with two yellow 

 spots. Head dull purple with a yellowish mark outside each 

 lobe. (0. Fenn.) 



End of June to September or even October. On sallow 

 and willow. 



Pupa cylindrical, of very even bulk throughout except the 

 last two abdominal segments which taper a little, both ends 

 being blunt and rounded. Deep red-brown ; dull, except 

 the tail, which is glossy ; wing-cases tinged with green. 

 (Hellins.) In a hard firm cocoon formed of silk and gnawings 

 of bark ; in a hollow gnawed out by the larva in the surface 

 of the bark of a willow or sallow, and finished off" so as 

 accurately to resemble the surrounding bark ; or else on any 

 piece of dead wood within reach. In cocoon through the 

 winter. 



With very rare exceptions single-brooded. A solitary 

 instance of a second emergence in the year, in this country, 

 was observed by the Hon. F. Thelluson — " I beat out a larva 

 from sallow in the last week in June 1893 at Rendlesham, 

 Suffolk; it was then large, and before the end of July became 

 a pupa, and to my astonishment the moth emerged on 

 August 8th." A similar instance is recorded by Ochsenheimer. 

 The moth flies at night and may be attracted by a strong 

 light. In the daytime it sits on the trunk, or more usually on 

 a branch, of one of its food-trees, its outstretched downy legs 

 and grey markings giving it a most deceptive likeness to an 

 entangled downy feather, or even a more close resemblance to 

 a ripe sallow catkin from which the downy seeds are bursting. 

 It is not very often taken in the imago state. The larva is 



