TRIFIDJE. 273 



portion, and the yellow stripes begin to appear. After 

 another change of skin the head is still paler, but with a 

 distinct black lunule on each side, the yellow stripes are more 

 distinct, and the general colour has become a pale apple- 

 green. When about to moult the new hairs beneath the skin 

 are readily seen, folded across the back in a regular pattern. 

 After this stage there is little alteration in appearance, except 

 that the adult colouring is soon assumed. 



August and September on ash, privet, and occasionally hazel. 

 Apparently it feeds mostly at night, since it is always found 

 in the daytime resting on the underside of a leaf and usually 

 stretched along its midrib, or even along the petiole of an 

 ash leaf, its more usual food. Here, Dr. Chapman says it is 

 difficult to see, its form and colour assimilating it so closely 

 to the leaf-stalk or rib on which it rests. 



Pupa short and thick, cylindrical or a little the broadest 

 across the base of the abdomen, but tapering very rapidly off 

 to the anal extremity, which is broadly and bluntly pointed 

 and provided with eight stout points hooked downward ; there 

 is a decided protrusion in front of the rounded thoracic por- 

 tion. The back of the abdominal rings is, in such, sculptured 

 into furrows or channels, two on each, and the pupa is in most 

 respects very unlike those of its congeners. Its colour is 

 brown, clouded with black on the back. In a cocoon of dark, 

 nearly black silk, in one dense layer of considerable strength, 

 but without any mixture of extraneous material ; adhering, if 

 possible, to some neighbouring object, and irregular in shape. 

 Very frequently the cocoon has a valvular slit, apparently as 

 a provision for the exit of the moth. Often it is spun up 

 under moss on the trunk of a tree, or else attached to a stem 

 or leaf at the surface of the ground. (Condensed from Dr. 

 Chapman's memoir.) In this condition through the winter. 



The moth usually sits in the daytime on the branch of a 

 tree and may occasionally be knocked off, when it falls, as 

 though dead, to the ground. It flies at dusk and comes to 



VOL. III. S 



