220 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



one time around the light at Wicken Fen, and, on one occasion 

 there, a sweep of the net for a large female resulted in the 

 capture of 3 $ specimens of E. quercifolia and 2 $ Cosmotriche 

 potatoria besides, but usually not more than half a dozen 

 will show up even on a good evening. We have also taken the 

 female flying heavily at dusk over a tall whitethorn hedge, possibly 

 ovipositing, and both sexes are frequently taken at lamps on the 

 outskirts of towns. Holland notes a $ found on a hedge at Whitley, 

 males at light of signal-box at Bulmershe railway station and at 

 street lamps at Caversham and Reading. Tillyard found it common 

 in 1896 at the electric lights in Norwich, and Morley has taken 

 several at the electric lights in Ipswich, whilst in 1896 Agassiz 

 reported it as very abundant at the electric lights of Aix-les-Bains, 

 and Edelsten, at light in the Norfolk Broads. Lambillion unexpectedly 

 asserts (in lift.) that the male also flies by day in the sun as well as in 

 the evening, whilst the ? is often found resting on the grass, or near 

 the ground, but we suspect this day-flying habit to be quite unusual. 

 We have already noted (anted, vol. ii., p. 476) that Todd obtained 

 the full development of certain specimens of Poecilocampa populi that 

 he removed from the pupa. Standfuss notes that he has repeatedly- 

 opened the pupae of the latter species and of Eutricha quercifolia and 

 that some of the imagines had fully developed their wings on the 

 afternoon of the following day, whilst others did not undergo 

 further development at all. It becomes much more interesting, 

 however, to know that Reaumur had, in 1736, performed the same 

 operation. He tells us that on July 15th, 1736, he took a pupa 

 from a cocoon, the pupa already showing dehiscence of the thoracic 

 segments, and he expected it to emerge immediately ; however, 

 as it had not done so the next day, and finding that it had not the 

 strength to emerge, he pulled the pupal skin from it, piece by piece, 

 and without injuring it. The freed imago, in spite of the vigour it 

 displayed, remained more than an hour with undeveloped wings, 

 and he feared he had interfered prematurely, but at the end of 

 that time, its wings commenced to expand, and in due course took their 

 regular shape, and the imago (a male) assumed its singular 

 attitude. The habitats of the species are extremely varied — orchards, 

 gardens, roadside-hedges, woodsides, fens and moorlands are among 

 those most frequently noted. Reaumur notes them on the fruit- 

 trees (pears, peaches, etc.) in the gardens around Paris ; Lambillion, 

 as common in gardens and orchards in Belgium ; in Nassau, it occurs 

 on fruit-trees, especially stone-fruit and pear, even in the gardens 

 of the towns. Miss Ormerod reports the larvae as doing great damage 

 to apple-trees in Herefordshire in June, 1S94; haunts the sallows 

 on the moors and drier marshes in Mecklenburg (Schmidt) ; pro- 

 bably more abundant in the fens of Cambridgeshire than elsewhere 

 in England (Tutt) ; prefers fenny situations about King's Lynn 

 (Atmore) ; on willows in the marshes in the Mansfield district 

 (Daws) ; frequents the salterns on the Island of Portsea (MoncreafT), 

 chooses the blackthorns on the edge of the saltmarshes near 

 Southend (Whittle) ; on the stunted blackthorn bushes on Culver 

 Down (Prout) ; on the whitethorns and blackthorns growing on the 

 cliffs in Guernsey (Luff) ; prefers the sloebushes on the slopes at 

 Leigh, in Essex (Vaughan) ; and the stunted thorn-bushes on bare 



