444 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



a fine imago at Little Salkeld, on June ist, 1899, at a bee-hive. 

 In Pabst's account of this species, there is a note by the editor 

 (Krancher) in which he states that he has long given attention 

 to this species on account of its propensity for entering hives, and 

 because, especially in places where it is common — Hungary, 

 Italy, &c. — it is in a position to ruin whole apiaries. He then 

 refers to a long article that he wrote on the subject in 

 the " Deutscher Bienenfreund, " 1889, nos. 17, 18, and 19. 

 Perkins notes (Ent. Mo. Mag., xix., p. 236) that a 2 specimen was 

 caught in May, 1861, by Lloyd, at Badminton, flying in the open day- 

 light in front of his hives, and apparently trying to enter one of them. 

 Hellins records (Ent. Mo. Mag., xxiii., p. 162) that, on July 28th, 1886, 

 at Dartington, a peculiar noise was heard at the beehives as if some- 

 thing was disturbing the bees ; the intruder was discovered to be 

 a specimen of M. atropos covered with bees, squealing, and that it could 

 not, or did not, fly ; the moth was captured and kept for a fortnight before 

 it died. Hawker records (Ent. Wk. Int., vii., p. 43) an imago 

 hovering at dusk, about beehives, and being attracted into a 

 room at Horndean by a plate of honey ; Hopson notes a ? found 

 at Abbotsbury, wedged in the entrance to an old-fashioned skep 

 beehive, considerably damaged, apparently by the bees ; Bell-Marley 

 mentions (Ent., xxx , p. 122) that imagines were reported to have 

 paid some beehives, at Tenbury, several visits in July and August, 

 1896. Cry of the imago : Of the cry of the imago, which was 

 compared by Esper with the chirp of Polichyllafnllo, Scop., by Hutnagel 

 with the noise made by the Cerambycids which rub the hard dorsal 

 plate against the elytra, by Kiihn with the squeak of the " Spitzmaus," 

 by Rossler with that of the ordinary mouse, and by Nicholson (Ent. 

 Rec, vii., p. 120) with that ot the cry of the corncrake, but repeated 

 incessantly instead of twice at short intervals, as in the case of the 

 bird, much has been written *. Reaumur writes (Memoires, ii., pp. 

 291 et seq.): " De tous les insectes, il est celui qui seroit le plus 

 propre a faire prendre son cri pour une veritable voix; car le cri 

 paroit partir du meme endroit d'011 partent ces sortes de sons La 

 trompe est, a proprement parler, la bouche du papillon; la trompe 

 de celui-ci est epaisse, et asses courte, elle forme au plus deux tours 

 de spirale ; elle est logee entre deux barbes, entre deux tiges barbues. 

 C'est de l'endroit 011 est placee la trompe, que sort le cri ; c'est de 

 quoi il m'a ete aise de m'assurer ; il me l'a ete en meme temps de 

 reconnoitre qu'il etoit produit par les frottemens des tiges barbues 

 (pi. xxiv., fig. yb-b) contre. la trompe. Chacune d'elles est un 

 cordon plus large qu'epais, une espece de lame qui se termine par 

 un p^dicule dont Finsertion et Fattache sont dans le dessous de la 



* Any theory hazarded as to the cause of the sound must take into account the 

 fact that it can be made by the moth in the pupa (see anted, p. 432). Quite recently 

 St. Bordan observed (Rovartani Lapok, i\\, p. 179) that the sound from an enclosed 

 moth was audible 5 or 6 days before the moth emerged. Aigner-Abafi observes 

 {Illns. 'Letts, fur Ent., i\\, p. 356) that the fact that the moth when in the pupa- 

 case can make a noise exactly like the imago, where there can be no in-and-out 

 movement of the air is convincing that the sound is not caused thereby but by the 

 friction of the two halves of the tongue. Edwards asserts (Ent. Wk. Int., v., 

 p. 117) that he heard the same kind of sound as that made by the imago, though 

 fainter, from a pupa that had not acquired much of the dark hue, which is 

 rather astonishing. 



