to take place just then. But I really think it would be worth doing, 

 and as I have only found a very few moths resting in full sunlight 

 against hundreds in the shade, I feel sure that something would 

 happen. 



There is a very large number of moths which are rarely if ever 

 found at rest in the daytime, and these afford ample scope for inves- 

 gation as to their resting habits. Do they sit on the high branches 

 or twigs of trees, or do they creep down to the ground and hide 

 amongst roots or within curled dead leaves ? Probably both, and the 

 fact that when beating for caterpillars moths not infrequently fall 

 into the beating-tray is a fairly positive proof in this direction. 

 Some, too, rest upon the stems of flowers and low plants, and 1 

 know of one species — Eremobia ochrokuca — which I have not as 

 yet been fortunate enough to see, which rests head downwards 

 beneath the flower-heads of the common knapweed on our south 

 coasts, and is, I am told, quite easily passed over unless the searcher 

 knows exactly what to look for. Another species, Gnophos obscii- 

 raria, which occurs on Colley and Reigate hills, rests not infre- 

 quently inside the burrows of rabbits, and I have several times 

 disturbed and captured it by poking the handle of my butterfly-net 

 into a burrow and rattling the earth inside. 



The photographs which accompany these notes unfortunately do 

 not show so much of the surroundings of the insects as I should 

 wish, as the negatives from which they were printed were mostly 

 taken natural size upon quarter-plates with the object of showing 

 more clearly the exact attitude adopted by each species, and the 

 position in which it placed its wings. This varies very much, but is 

 more or less constant with species which are nearly related. Some, 

 especially butterflies, hold the wings vertically over the back with the 

 upper surfaces pressed closely together, and the front pair largely 

 covered by the hind ones, and such gaily-coloured insects as Vanessa 

 atalanfa (PI. II, fig. 2) and V. io render themselves most incon- 

 spicuous by these means, as their under-side coloration is dull and 

 neutral. 



From this position examples may be found in which the wings are 

 held at all degrees down to the horizontal, and pressed closely to the 

 surface on which the insect is sitting, and should this not be flat 

 the wings will go lower and low'er, until, in the case of a moth resting 

 on a blade of grass, they may be pressed together beneath the 

 insect's body and below its support. 



Then, again, there is a great difference in the amount of spread in 

 the wings from the attitude assumed by the EupithecicT (PI. Ill, 

 fig. 3), and the Acidalue (PI. Ill, fig. 2), which is very similar to 

 that of a set specimen in the cabinet, through all sorts of obtuse and 

 acute-angled triangles to a position like that of Anisopteryx CBScularia 

 (PI. II, fig. 3), in which the wings, while being held flat over the 

 back, are overlapped to such an extent that the full visible width of 

 the entire insect is no more than that of a single fore-wing. 



