368 LEPIDOPTERA. 



t.han the rest of the body, and often it has a whiter patch on 

 each side. 



September to June, or even July, on the dwarf sallows 

 which grow so closely to the ground on some sandhills, or on 

 fine grasses, chick weed, and probably other low-growing 

 sandhill plants, since it is not confined to those sandhills on 

 which are patches of sallow. In confinement it will eat 

 willow and osier. Feeding at night. Dr. Ellis says that it 

 has the habit of eating right through a sallow leaf so as to 

 separate a portion, which it then holds between its anterior 

 feet and proceeds to devour. During the day it hides 

 beneath the surface of the sand, and is said to be readily 

 discoverable by its track on the sand and the tiny hillock 

 under which it lies concealed. When dug out it, at first, 

 seems stiff and sluggish, but after a few minutes it relaxes, 

 and is then sufficiently active. It is said that those keen 

 foragers, the sea-gulls, have learned to recognise the little 

 hillock of sand under which it hides in the daytime, and dig 

 it out for their own consumption. 



Pupa apparently undescribed. 



The moth hides by day among tangled grass roots under 

 overhanging edges of sandhills, or among dense herbage on 

 the sand. If shaken out of its place of refuge it rolls down 

 quite inert and with its wings clasped, almost rolled, tightly 

 down, has a curious cylindrical appearance, something like a 

 piece of the large bark-like sheath of the root oi Ammophila. 

 It flies at late dusk, and soon settles down to feed on the rather 

 strong- smelling blossoms of the common ragwort, or on the 

 spikes of the Marram-grass ; and is readily attracted by light, 

 or by the blossoms of heather, where this grows near the 

 coast. Its home is the heaped-up waste of sand produced on 

 every sandy coast by the constant drifting of this loose 

 material before the wind ; and in such localities it may be 

 found on many portions of our littoral. Before this special 

 habitat was discovered it was supposed to be one of our rarest 



