May on Achillea and Polygomnn, etc. "Wood's Index," under 

 names of A. incanata and A. contiguaria, gives date of appearance of 

 the moth as end of June. Wilson's " Larvae " also gives June as the 

 time of appearance of the imago, and July to May as the duration of 

 the larval stage, the food-plants mentioned being mallow and yarrow, 

 and knotgrass in confinement ; and sundry other authors gave much 

 the same information. Buckler, in " The Larvae of British Butter- 

 flies and Moths " (under the name of A. incanata), gives a couple of 

 very good figures of the larva, except that it is perhaps impossible 

 to portay in print the delightfully soft tone of colour of the 

 living animal (PL cxviii, figs. 5, 5a), but appears to have 

 left us no notes regarding them. The deficiency is, however, 

 suppUed by Porritt (Vol. vii, p. 108), who edited this portion of the 

 work. He gives an accurate description of the larvae (which, taken 

 in conjunction wath the figures already mentioned, will be all that it 

 is necessary to say under this head), and remarks that the larvas 

 received in September hybernated for an unusually long period, did 

 not commence feeding until long after other larvae had done so, and 

 were not full-fed until quite the end of June ; and adds, " This, how- 

 ever, cannot be taken as a natural habit of the species, whatever may 

 have been the cause in this case." My own experience, however, is 

 quite in accord with his, the period of hybernation invariably being 

 prolonged.* 



Thus left to my own. resources, I determined to follow carefully 

 the habits of the imago when next I should fall in with it, in the 

 hope that I might gather such hints from its habits and surroundings 

 as might enable me to work out its life history under something 

 approaching natural conditions. 



The desired opportunity occurred on my going to Eastbourne 

 towards the end of August, 1900. For some days after my arrival I 

 saw nothing of the species ; strong winds and gales swept the coast, 

 rendering the exposed stones on which the insect usually rests un- 

 tenable ; and it was not until the early days of September that I 

 began to find them in any numbers, and even then in nothing like 

 the profusion that I had seen in some previous years, but quite 

 commonly enough for my purposes. 



In previous notes on this species I have mentioned its habit of 

 sitting, fully exposed, on the rough blocks of stone which support 

 the banks facing the sea ("Proc," 1891, p. 171; 1896, p. 108, etc.). 

 At dusk it flits about among the thick masses of tamarisk that grow- 

 on these banks, and after a mild night, even though a fair amount of 

 westerly breeze may sweep the front of the banks, the moths will be 

 found settled down on the stones in the morning. Not so if the 

 wind is east and the weather dull, when the moths probably find 



* The part of Barrett's " British Lepidoptera " dealing with this species, and 

 where some amount of detail regarding its habits is given, has since been pub- 

 lished. 



