149 
THE HIBERNATION AND PAIRING OF 
SCOTOSIA DUBITATA L. 
J. W. CARTER, F.E.S. 
Bradford. 
In Mid-Airedale S. dubitata cannot be considered a common 
insect. Mr. Porritt states it is ‘moderately common in 
Yorkshire,’ and it appears to be rarer and more thinly dis- 
tributed northwards. Dr. Ellis in his ‘ Lepidopterous Fauna of 
Lancashire and Cheshire,’ says ‘ generally distributed though 
scarcely common ’ ; and the late J. E. Robson, in his ‘ Catalogue 
Cuthbert Hastings). [Photo. 
Scotosia dubitata on roof of cave. 
of the Lepidoptera of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne,’ regarded it as a very rare species in these northern 
counties. So far as Airedale is concerned, during a period of 
more than thirty years, the species has been taken very rarely 
in autumn and spring, and all that I have myself obtained 
either in autumn or spring have proved to be females. 
The late Edward Newman, in his ‘ Natural History of 
British Moths,’ says: ‘the impregnated females hibernate 
and deposit their eggs in the spring, the males being destroyed 
by the early frosts at the approach of winter.’ That this is 
not the case has been clearly proved by some interesting ob- 
servations recently made by Mr. Cuthbert Hastings. That the 
1gt1 April 1. 
