208 BKITISH BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 



The perfect insect appears in May (or at the end of 

 April if the weather be warm), and continues to be met 

 with during the greater part of the summer ; it often 

 enters houses, attracted by light. 



FAMILY II. ENNOMID.E. 



8ELENIA ILLUSTRAEIA. THE PUEPLE 

 THOEN. 



(Plate IX., Fig. 2.) 



This handsome insect appears to be restricted in its 

 range to the south of England. 



The expansion of the wings varies from 1J to If inch. 

 All the wings are pale grey, with a faint rosy tinge 

 clouded with brownish to beyond the middle ; this 

 darker colour is bounded in the fore-wings by a sinuous 

 dark line, beyond which is a broad pale band, but this 

 pale band is not nearly so distinctly expressed on the 

 hind-wings ; in the centre of each wing is a moon- 

 shaped white spot. 



The larva is of a rich purple-brown, varied with grey- 

 ish and orange-brown, with bifid humps on the fifth, 

 sixth, eighth, and ninth segments. It feeds on birch, 

 beech, ash, oak, and sallow, in June and again in 

 September. 



The perfect insect appears in May and again in 

 August ; it comes rather freely to light. The May 

 specimens are much larger than the August specimens, 

 and this peculiarity of a striking diiference of size in the 

 two broods also occurs in another species of Selenia, the 

 Early Thorn (S. Ulumaria), which appears in March 

 and July, and is the commonest of the genus and 

 generally distributed. 



