28 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



Plantago minor (Prideaux), Anthyllis vulneraria, Lotus corniculatus, 

 hawthorn, sallow (Jones), Trifolium prate-use, Medicagofalcata (Stephens), 

 star-grass (Ellis), Genista ? cinerea (Bromilow), grass, Ornithopus perpu- 

 siilus, clover of any sort, oak, willow, bramble, furze (Dell), most species 

 of willow and trefoil (Walker), blackthorn, oak (Luff), walnut (Turner), 

 heath, plum (Edelsten), Medicago lupulina (Curtis), Statice armeria (B. 

 Adkin), white and red trefoil plantain, young furze-shoots, bramble, 

 etc., and, in confinement, oak, beech, ash, poplar, willow, whitethorn 

 and blackthorn (Reading), raspberry (Hawker). Butler notes 

 that larvae in May, 1894, failed on clover and broom, but fed up well 

 on sallow, and imagines emerged August 1st — 22nd, 1894. Jones ob- 

 serves that the food-plant in the Wallasey district is almost exclusively 

 Anthyllis vulneraria, but that the larva also eats Lotus corniculatus, 

 whilst sallow and hawthorn are poor substitutes ; Bowles says that 

 young larvae feed freely on heather, whilst in confinement they nibble 

 grass and clover, but feed up quickly and freely on young strong 

 shoots of plum or sallow, but slowly on older leaves ; he also states 

 that he knew a case in which the larvae were reared on Virginia creeper 

 in a London garden. Hippophacs rhanuwides (Snellen). 



Parasites. — Graven/iorstia pieta,Drewsen and Boie (Mitford, &c), 

 Cryptus migrator, Fab. (twelve males from one cocoon) (Bignell), 

 Ophion obscurus, Fab. (Bairstow), Ophion undulatus, Gr. (Hartlieb), 

 Anomalon giganteum, Grv. (Rondani), Exochelum circumflexum var. 

 giganteum (Hartlieb and Ratzeburg). 



Habits and Habitat. — The moths emerge in the early afternoon 

 and the males fly before dusk (in a cage they ruin themselves almost 

 as soon as the wings are dry). The ? s are very hard to breed perfect, 

 a large proportion being deformed (Bowles). Riihl says that in the 

 Zurich district the males fly by day in damp meadows, and Gregson 

 notes capturing a male thus flying on August 17th, 1844, and another 

 flying at night with Agrotis vestigialis on the Lancashire coast. The 

 imagines are not often seen on the wing, but the males are taken on 

 the gas-lamps in September at Gibraltar (Walker). Alilliere notes 

 females as attracted by light in the Alpes-Maritimes, and Kaye took 

 the species on the gas-lamps on the fore-shore at St. Heliers, whilst 

 we found males flying into the lighted rooms of the Albergo del 

 Camoscio at Bobbie between 9 and 10 p.m., August 14th — 17th, 1901. 

 Nageli notes both sexes in great abundance at electric light at 

 Zurich in the middle of August, 1893, also very abundant at electric 

 light at Berne in 1893 (Hiltbold), and at the electric lights in Aix-les- 

 Bains in 1896 (Agassiz). The female of P. trifolii readily 

 attracts the males, and large numbers of the latter sex may 

 be obtained by this means. Harker asserts, however, that the 

 males mostly fly from 7 p.m. — 8 p.m., that the flight of the 

 males is very swift, strong, undulating or jerky, and that they can only 

 be assembled about 8 p.m. on favourable evenings. Jones also 

 reports numbers being taken by assembling on the Cheshire sandhills, 

 whilst Noye captured [ 3 males on August i8th and 19th, 1849, when 

 assembling to a fresh ? about half-an-hour before sunset, near Land's 

 End, and Jennings notes that in t86o, in Jersey, a bred female attracted 

 a S !<• quert&S. A female bred by Lowe. September 1st. 1880. at St. 

 Sampson's, attracted a male (which he caught) although in suburbs 

 ol~ the town. Occasional specimens of the imago found by 



