DESCKIPTIVE NOTICES OF CONSPICUOUS SPECIES 223 



chocolate -brown longitudinal lines ; spiracular line 

 creamy white, the spiracles black. It feeds on the 

 common fern in June and July. 



The perfect insect appears in May, and is readily 

 started from its repose as we walk along ; it flies briskly 

 for a short distance, and abruptly settles again. 



FAMILY XT. FIDONIM;. 

 FIDONIA PINIARIA. THE BOEDEEED WHITE. 



This pretty species is very common in fir-woods 

 throughout England and Scotland ; but must be scarcer 

 in Ireland, since Mr. Birchall has not himself met with 

 it there. 



The expansion of the wings is about 1J inch. The 

 two sexes are very different in colouring ; in the males 

 the fore-wings are yellowish-white or white (specimens 

 from the south of England are yellowish-white, whilst 

 the Scotch specimens are white) ; a brown streak runs 

 along the costa, and another along the inner margin, 

 and the entire tip of the wing is of a brown-black ; two 

 or three brown veins intersect the pale portion of the 

 wing ; the hind-wings have very similar markings, but 

 are more suffused ; ail the cilia are white, chequered 

 with brown. In the English females all the wings are 

 dull orange, freckled with brown, and with a broad 

 brown border along the hinder margin, broadest to- 

 wards the costa, and with one or two rather indistinct 

 brownish bands; the Scotch females are much more 

 sombre-looking, the orange colouring being replaced by 

 a pale shade of dull brown. 



The larva is whitish-green, with a rather broad, 

 white, dorsal line ; the subdorsal lines are pale bluish- 



