no 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[June 



autumn, in the flowers of Scabiosa, on sunny afternoons some of the 

 larvae coming outside the flowers, and being exposed should of course 

 then be easily seen. And Mr. C. Barrett, if I remember, 

 rightly told me he had found the larva of the later moths feeding in 

 the steins of Scabiosa, beiore the time for the flowers to appear; but 

 although I have searched season after season, at all the parts of the 

 year from May to September, and Mr. S. L. Mosley of this town has 

 also worked diligently at difl'erent times of the year for it, neither of 

 us have ever been able to detect a trace of the larva in any part of 

 the plant " (" Ent. Mo. Mag.," Vol. XXI., p. 208). 



Pupa — The pupa was first described by Mr. Gregson who 

 writes : — " The pupa is slender with green wing-cases and a pinkish 

 body ; it is suspended by the tail, either from its food-plant or from 

 any blade of grass or other object it may find in the neighbourhood. 

 In this state it remains fifteen days when the perfect insect appears " 

 ("Entomologist," III., p. 186). Mr. South further adds Pale 

 green, with an obscure reddish pink dorsal line or stripe, which in 

 some examples is only represented by short dashes behind the thorax, 

 and on the last four segments. The anal segment and tip of leg-cases 

 pale pinkish; sometimes the whole of the dorsal area is also suffused 

 with pinkish. Wing-cases tinged with yellowish. Leg-cases detached 

 from abdomen. Suspended by anal attachment from a leaf or stem 

 of food-plant. April, May and June" ("Entomologist," Vol. 

 XVIII., p. 274). 



Habitat — It seems difficult to find a locality that this species 

 does not aftect if any species of Scabiosa be found. I have taken it 

 myself in marshy meadows, woods, on roadsides, on inland chalk 

 liills and on chalk cliffs facing the sea. Mr. C. G. Barrett says : — -"The 

 insect (plagiodactyhts J is common in chalky places among Scabiosa 

 colninbaria, sometimes swarming about disused chalk-pits," whilst 

 again he says that " we find bipunctidactyiiis scattered all over the 

 country almost wherever S. snccisa grows." He also records it from 

 "Ranworth Fen on a patch of very luxuriant 5. snccisa,'" at 

 "Brandon among vS\ columbaria and S. arvensis " (^"Ent. Mo. Mag.," 

 Vol XVIII., p. 179). Mr. Gregson records a form under the name 

 oi aridus from Wales, in the same Magazine, Vol. VII., p. 88, whilst 

 Mr. Porritt on p. 63 of the same volumn records plagiodactyhts from 

 Witherslack," and Mr. C. G. Barrett in Vol. XXIV., p. 396 records 

 it from "near Swaffham." I have taken it abundantly at Strood 

 Cuxton, Deal, Folkestone and other Kent localities, at Freshwater, in 

 the Isle of V^'lght, near Wicken Fen, and many other places. Mr. 

 Atmore records it from "King's Lynn in Norfolk" ("Ent. 

 Record," &c., Vol. 11., p. 285), and it is mentioned in the list of the 

 " Lepidoptera of Burton-on-Trent." It occurs in Cork, Dublin and 



