38 NDDARIA SENEX. 



Mr. Birks described the locality in which the moths 

 were captured by him as a swamp very rich in plants, 

 and he found them either hovering over tufts of low 

 herbage and coarse grass, or resting on the blades and 

 stems of the grass or reeds. He could see no lichens, 

 except on the trunks of the trees growing there, and 

 he never noticed the moths haunting these, as we might 

 suppose they sometimes would, if they deposited their 

 eggs on them. Possibly the food may be some lichen 

 growing under the herbage on the damp ground. 



The female while laying her eggs mixes with them 

 fluff from a tuft at her tail, which she detaches by 

 means of her two hinder feet ; and the way in which 

 the fine plumes from this tuft adhere to the eggs 

 makes it rather hard to describe them. 



The larvse, when hatched, were placed in a flower- 

 pot with growing moss and lichen and straightway 

 hid themselves ; nothing more was seen of them till 

 the solitary survivor of the whole brood was detected 

 feeding early in May. Probably the rest were destroyed, 

 while yet tender, by the small slugs and snails that 

 infest lichens, and cannot be got rid of except by 

 picking the latter to pieces ; small centipedes also hide 

 themselves away craftily, and no doubt do mischief. 



The egg is small, globular in shape, but so soft that 

 the outline is not at all regular, the shell shining, 

 covered with faint irregular reticulations, yellowish in 

 colour. 



The young larva is pale grey, with a central olive 

 stripe down the back, and with five or six long, pale 

 grey hairs from each tubercle. Just before the last 

 moult, the whole larva has a waxen, dull, smoky appear- 

 ance ; the tubercles raised and studded with tufts, 

 formed of short smoky hairs, mixed with a few 

 feathered plumes. When full grown the length is 

 three-eighths of an inch, the figure very stout in pro- 

 portion ; the tufts so dense that the skin cannot be 

 well seen, except when the larva curls itself up, and 

 then it is seen at the segmental divisions — waxen- 



