SPHINX LIGUSTRI. 323 



and after the parasite emerges the pupa appears to be half 

 filled with thick creamy-looking matter, but there is no indication of a 

 parasitic pupa-case (see E?it., xi., p. 274)]; Anomalon circumflexu?)i, 

 Linn. (Rondani) ; Exorista vulgaris. Fallen (Bridgman). 



Habits. — Merrifield states that the imagines emerge from pupa 

 at almost any time throughout the day, but Russell observes that 

 they emerge in the evening before 8 o'clock. The imago flies at 

 dusk and continues on the wing far into the night. By crouching by 

 the side of a tall privet-bush in early July, we have seen the females 

 against the sky as they have come to lay their eggs, the noise made by 

 the vibration of the wings being quite audible. Waters records (Ent., 

 xix., pp. 44-45) that, in 1885, he disturbed a $ whilst ovipositing, 

 that it wheeled round repeatedly above his head, remaining poised 

 each time over the spot whence she was disturbed for several 

 seconds, the rapid vibration of her wings producing a loud humming 

 noise distinctly audible, that became shriller after a time as if it 

 were aware of his presence. Trimen has seen the imagines at 

 flowers of rhododendron at Box Hill, about half-an-hour after 

 sunset, looking like a yellow "shade among the topmost flowers, 

 hovering about the congregated blossom, etc. Lambillion, too, notes 

 that they fly about g o'clock in the evening round bushes of Ligustrum 

 in Belgium, and Montgomery has observed them flying at sunset over 

 a mixed hedge at the foot of the downs at Eastbourne. Prideaux 

 has noticed them at dusk hovering over privet blossom in the 

 Isle of Wight, and over honeysuckle at Bristol, whilst other flowers 

 noted are honeysuckle at Leytonstone (Meldola), at Boxworth 

 (Thornhill), at St. Ives (Norris), at Chiswick (Sich), at honeysuckle 

 and rhododendron at Newbury (Beales), at rhododendron in the 

 New Forest (Richardson), in Upper Lusatia (Moeschler), at Saponaria 

 in Modena (Fiori), at jessamine at Hollo way (James), at Nicotia?ia 

 affijiis at Mansfield (Daws), at red valerian at Farningham (Barraud), 

 at pinks at Groombridge (Blaber), whilst Caradja observes that the 

 insect, usually rare in Roumania, swarmed at petunias in the hot 

 summer of 1892. D'Urban notes an imago with a pollen-mass attached 

 to right eye ; and one is recorded (Zool.) as being caught by the tongue 

 by a flower of Oenothera speciosa, at Sudbury, in 1848. It is often 

 attracted to light and has been recorded thus — from Chester (Arkle), 

 Winchester (Shepheard-Walwyn), Emsworth (Christy), Horrabridge 

 (Still), Wicken (James), as well as at Bristol (Bartlett), at Oxton 

 (Studd), at Boscombe (Robertson), and at electric light at Kingston- 

 on-Thames (Cooper), at Taunton (Farrant), at Eastbourne (Dewey), 

 at Ipswich (Morley), at High Wycombe (Peachell), at Berne 

 (Benteli), at Zurich (Nageli), at Aix-les-Bains (Agassiz), etc. It 

 rests by day with its wings drawn over the body and is usually 

 found at rest on posts, fences, palings, etc., the colour of which 

 its forewings match admirably, but it is also taken occasionally 

 on the trunks of ash, lilac and other trees. Martineau records 

 (Enf., xxvi., p. 231 • E.M.M., xxix., p. 170) that, at Solihull, a 

 specimen of S. ligustri entered a beehive, and was killed by the 

 bees who covered the body with wax. The species hardly seems 

 to be so sedentary as one would think, for Cordeaux notes (E.M.M., 

 xxv., p. hi) that three specimens visited the Leman and Ower Light 

 vessel, moored in the North Sea about 48 miles E.N.E. of Cromer, 



