158 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



sharp dorsal spike. The very peculiarly-shaped narrow headpiece 

 is terminated by a helmet-like projection, apparently containing the 

 mouth-organs. The surface is fairly smooth, but not shining ; it is, 

 in fact, very slightly shagreened. In colour the pupa closely resembles 

 that of Hyles euphorbiae (Lucas). Long, of a light brown colour, 

 the last two segments darker brown, the anal spike strong and sharply 

 pointed, but with no other projection to break the outline (Buckler). 

 Yellow-brown, similar to that of H. euphorbiae (Ochsenheimer). 



Foodplants. — Almost polyphagous ( Boisdu val), dock (Cumming), 

 knot-grass (Bignell), vine, fuchsia, ? marigold, ? grass (Hellins), Vitis 

 vinifera, Galium veruni, Beta, Scabiosa (Bartel), garden centaury 

 (Farn), broadleaved plantain (Hobbs), Sonchus arvensis (teste 

 Duncan), Erythraea ?naritima (Mabille), Galium mollugo (Chaumette), 

 Rumex acetosella, toadflax (Bellier-de-la-Chavignerie), Euphorbiaceae* 

 (Allard, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr., 1867, p. 315). 



Habits. — This species occurs more or less abundantly at 

 irregular intervals in Britain, although two or three consecutive 

 years rarely pass without some examples being captured. It has 

 apparently a permanent home on the southern littoral of the Mediter- 

 ranean, abounding in certain parts of northern Africa, where it is 

 also continuously-brooded, and whence it gives off numerous emigrants, 

 which spread into southern, central, and northern Europe. The spring 

 brood is generally the migrating one, the May-June immigrants 

 laying eggs which give rise to native-born imagines in August- 

 September, or even later in the countries they visit, although, 

 in some years, e.g., 1869, the spring arrivals are apparently not 

 able to lay the foundation of an autumnal brood. As to actual 

 evidence of its migration, Fletcher records (Ent., xxxiv., p. 223) 

 that, on May 1st, 1901, when about 100 miles from Greece, two 

 specimens of P. livornica were caught on board ship, which had 

 possibly flown on board the night before, although all lights were 

 out, and suggests that it is quite possible that they were migrating. 

 Manger has a specimen that flew on board ship in the Red Sea, 

 and Boisduval notes (Hist. Nat., p. 173) that Daube did not con- 

 sider it indigenous to southern France, but that the French examples 

 came from the north of Africa or southern Spain ; he asserted that 

 he had seen every year, in full daylight, a large number cross the 

 Mediterranean Sea. A note to the effect that the imagines were especially 

 abundant at Montpellier after violent south winds, in May, 1834, is 

 also published (Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr., v., p. 363). An example was taken 

 in a boat on June 1 8th, 1863, at Modbury, in Devon (Green), and 

 Stephens notes a specimen taken in June, 1824, at Billingsgate, off 

 a Ramsgate steam-vessel, and one, recorded as Hyles euphorbiae (Ent. 

 Wk. Int., v., p. 11), was picked up on the beach at Chickerell (Payne), 

 whilst, on May 26th, 1870, one was captured on the shore at Folke- 

 stone ; this specimen was observed flying out at sea, and it dropped 

 directly it reached the shore (Knaggs). In the British Isles and 

 in central and southern Europe generally, it usually flies at dusk, 

 being attracted by numberless flowers, although, in northern Africa, the 

 Cape of Good Hope, the Levant, Spain, and the warmer parts of what may 



* Evei'smann records (Bull. Ent. Soc. Afosc, x., 1, p. 30) that P. livornica flies 

 commonly at the end of May among Euphorbia with Hyles euphorbiae on the steppes 

 on the Achtuba, although he does not say that the larva ieeds thereon. 



