42 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[March 



in October and hybernating. I have reared them in that month." {in 

 litt). 



Habitat — The species is common on sunny banks and the lower 

 slopes of downs . I have found it on banks and in the more open 

 parts of woods where its food-plant occurs. I have taken it in several 

 localities in Kent and the Isle of Wight, and it is locally abundant in 

 tlie Lake District. It is, however, rare at Huddersfield. Mr. Porritt 

 writes : — "P. acanthodactylus, too, though a rare species here, I have 

 never seen except among ling. Its best known food plants are Ononis 

 arveiisis and Stachys sylvatica both of w^hich are common in many 

 places, and although we have a little of the former, and the latter in 

 abundance, I have never seen a specimen of the moth about either 

 plant. It occurs in woods having an undergrowth of ling, bat still 

 quite away from the two well known plants " (" Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine," Vol. XXI., p. 20S). Dr. Jordan writes : — " I 

 must in some years have seen fifty specimens in an afternoon on 

 Ononis, near the \\'arren at Dawlish, and all of them with a rich red- 

 dish hue on the fore wings, utterly different from the almost greenish 

 tint of cosuiodactyla " Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. 

 XVIII., p. 117); whilst in the same \'ol. p. 212, the Rev. H. Williams 

 writes: — Acantliodactylus 1?^ \exy comvciovL in this county (Norfolk)." 

 At Gareloch-head it is not uncommon in July, and hybernated speci- 

 mens in ]\Iay and early in June. Mrs. Hutchinson tells me that it 

 occurs rarely near Leominster among Ononis. In Aberdeenshire, 

 (Bennachie), !\Ir. Rei i re])orts i^ as occurring rarely in June. It is 

 abundant along the southern cjast, v/herever it has been worked 

 (Sussex, Hants, Dorsetshire, &c.). Of Welsh localities, I have only 

 one record, that of Mr. Nelson Richardson, who used to take the 

 species in Cardiganshire. It is common on tiie Continent of Europe, 

 but is unknoAvn in America." 



A. punctidactyla, Haw. — Tliis species, wliich lias been for some 

 years considered identical witli tJie cosmodactyla of Hiibner, has 

 lately produce ! some discussion owing to the attempts which have 

 been made to sink it as a variety of acanthodactyla. 



Syxoxymy — Punctidactyla, Haw., 479 ; vStephs. 111., IV. 376; 

 Wood, 1648; Tutt, Ent. Record, I.,93. Cosmodactyla , var. Stacliydalis, 

 Frey, Stett. Zeit., p. 125 (1875). Cosmodactyla, Treit. IX., 2, 235 (?), 



