i»93-] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



57 



threw it aside, and was not a little surprised a few days afterwards, 

 at finding a specimen of Pterophonis lienigianus at rest on the ceiling. 

 The riddle was therefore solved — it was clear that the pupa had been 

 so well hidden that I had overlooked it." He then adds : — " The 

 pupa strongly developed the curious power (shared more or less by 

 most of those of the Pterophondce) of throwing its head back over its 

 tail with considerable force. Thus, anything touching the anal seg- 

 ment is pretty certain to receive a smart rap, delivered backwards, 

 from the head of the pupa. Everyone must have observed that when 

 a plume emerges the pupa bend back so as to allow the moth to use 

 its long legs as soon as they are freed from the envelope. The 

 deserted tent is a curious object, with its oblong windows edged with 

 white down, and its seams made as neatly as a spider even could do 

 it. In the case of large leaves, only one of the divisions is made use 

 of, the whole leaf being beyond the powers of the architect. In 

 confinement, these larvae, like those of teucvii, throw off their pro- 

 tective h ibits and make no tent, but simply feed under the leaves in 

 their usual fashion. Unlike teucrii, however, they are very easy to 

 rear, as, with a little care, nearly every specimen produces the perfect 

 insect'' ("Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. VIII., pp. 156- 



157)- 



Habitat — The only localities in which I have found this species 

 are (1) a bank by the roadside between Deal and Sandwich and (2) 

 under a hedge bordering a cultivated field. In the first place, the 

 Artemisia plants are somewhat isolated and directly in the path of 

 those pedestrians who prefer to walk on the green sides of a country 

 lane to the dusty road. This locality has practically, from this cause, 

 been ruined. The second locality produces an abundance of plants of 

 Artemisia just under a hedge which forms the border of a cultivated 

 held. Mr. Barrett records it from a lane near Norwich so that shady 

 places and country lanes would appear to be the favourite haunts 

 of this local species. Staudinger and Wocke's localities lead us to 

 look on this as a strictly local species and it appears to be confined to 

 " Livonia, Germany and Central Italy." It is a species, therefore, 

 not likely to be met with in the northern parts of Britain. Stainton 

 gives as localites " Ventnor (Isle of Wight) and Deal." 



Time of Appearanxe — The moth appears in July and August 

 according to the season. In J 885, my brother-in-law, Mr. Ovenden 

 and myself, took some 30 to 40 freshly-emerged specimens at Deal as 

 early as July 4th. Since then the moth has been rare at Deal, and I 

 have only taken a few specimens towards the middle of July, whilst 

 in that excessively cold summer, 1888, the only specimens I saw 

 were found in the middle of August. In 1890, very worn specimens 

 were captured during the first week in August. Mr. C. G. Barrett 



