15 



more accurately. But in July and August when the heather 

 is bright with blossom, it is frequented by Agrotis porphyrea 

 and A, agatJiina, both of which may easily be passed over for 

 a sprig of fresh blossom. At the same time Gelechia ericinella 

 exactly simulates in colour and markings the double row of 

 tiny leaves on a very young shoot. In much the same way 

 TracJi<2a piniperda and most of the Tortrices of the genus 

 Retinia imitate the colour and appearance of the scaly red 

 shoots of fir; while Tortrix ministrana, Catoptria albersana, 

 Ptycholoma lecheana and Pyrodes rhediella are hardly to be 

 distinguished from the brown capsules or sheaths which fall 

 in abundance from the buds of trees in the early summer. 

 Other species take the form of a bit of stick — Pygcera 

 biicephala when hiding on a grassy bank at the foot of a hedge, 

 is a most evident piece of grey stick with rounded patches of 

 yellow lichen upon it ; Ptilodontis palpina, with the long pro- 

 jecting points of its porrected palpi, " prominent " dorsal 

 scales, and long anal tufts is hardly distinguishable from a 

 broken bit of dry bramble stick, with jagged ends and the 

 thorns still attached; and Nephopteryx genistelIa,-wh.Q.n resting 

 on a brown stick of furze, with wings clasped closely down, 

 its head stiffly raised and finished off with a brush of stiff 

 erect scales, and the slight fascia across the wings resembling 

 a joint, looks like nothing else than a dead and broken twig. 

 Calocanipa exoleta, when sitting on ivy bloom or at sugar on a 

 tree trunk, with v/ings folded and wrinkled close to its sides, 

 is also a mere stick, and so is its congener C. vetusta ; but 

 perhaps the most startling resemblance is that of Cuctillia 

 verbasci to the dead thorn branch, upon which it sometimes 

 spends the day, in a hedge, close to its food plant. The 

 harmony of its crested thorax, extended leg-, and longi- 

 tudinally-striped wings, with the dead wood, is exquisite. 

 Another curious resemblance is that of Cossiis ligniperda to a 

 piece of chip. When sitting at the top of a paling, with head 

 and thorax raised to the utmost by the stiff strong fore legs, 

 and wings pressed closely to its body, it appears to be a piece 

 of the grey wood split away and turned back. Similarly 

 when Batrachedra prceangusta, driven by the wind from its 

 beloved poplar-tree, takes refuge on a fence, holding itself 

 stiffly erect, it appears to he a ti'iy splinter weathered off; and 

 when seen thus sitting in scores, the paling appears rough 

 with small raised filaments. Melissoblaptes cephalonica, when 

 at rest on the beams and wooden supports of a fruit ware- 

 house, with head thrown stiffly back, can scarcely be dis- 

 tinguished from a splinter ; and the same, in some degree, 



