66 CATALOGITE OF MOTHS. 



places they frequent, it is curious to observe how they are all 

 affected by the same conditions. On a suitable evening you 

 may see a male take up its position under a bracken, and swing 

 backward and forward for six or eight inches, as if it were sus- 

 pended by a thread. You look around ; there is another, and 

 another, and another, — under every fern frond, or beside every 

 low bush, there is Hectus. A female flies up with a hesitating, 

 uncertain flight, attracted by the perfume the male is diffusing. 

 As soon as they perceive each other they retire to the herbage. 

 The same procedure has gone on all round, and in comparatively 

 a few minutes they have all disappeared. You come to the same 

 place next evening at the same hour. To your perception the 

 conditions are the same as before, but the Golden Swift knows 

 better, and not one is to be seen. Perhaps the third night you 

 will watch the males with their pendulous motion, for a quarter 

 of an hour or more, but no female disturbs them and they retire 

 alone. Sometimes, but not often, the male may be found at rest 

 on tree trunks. I have never found the female there. 



A variety with golden marks on the hind wings is occasionally 

 met with in the IN^orth of Scotland. I have taken one or two in 

 Hesleden Dene in which there were traces of these markings. 



3. Hepialus Lupulinus, (Linn.). Common Swift. 



Hepialus LupuUnus. Staint. Man., vol. i., p. 111. 



,, ,, IS'ewm. Brit. Moths, p. 19. 



,, ,, Barr. Lep. Brit. Is., vol. ii., p. 155. 



,, „ Meyr. Hdbk., Brit. Lep., p. 800. 



Larva Buck., vol. ii., pi. xxx., fig. 2. 



Mr. Barrett says, this species is ''plentiful in suitable places 

 as far north as Yorkshire and Lancashire, but less common fur- 

 ther north." It is certainly abundant enough in Durham, and 

 I expect when Northumberland has been more fully collected 

 over, that it will be found equally common there. 



Its habits are the very opposite of those of the last species. 

 The female Lupulinus climbs up a grass stem and commences to 

 vibrate her wings rapidly, to diffuse the odour which serves to 



