82 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



[Mat 



ever, cut quickly short by an appearance of the moth already out, and 

 then, and afterwards, I secured a good many, the females being so ex- 

 ceedingly sluggish, that I only took two specimens of that sex " 

 (" Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. VIII., p. 153). Writing 

 from Pembroke in the early part of the summer of 1880, Mr. Barrett 

 says : — " I have been lately very much interested in working a piece 

 of peculiarly wet marsh, thickly overgrown by Senecio aquaticus, &c. 

 Here I found Platyptilia isodactylus by no means scarce, flying before 

 dusk among Senecio aquaticus, in the stems of which its larva feeds and 

 among which it conceals itself in the daytime " (" Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine," Vol. VII., p. 91). These appear to me to be the 

 only two records of the early brood. Of the later broods we find the 

 following records, Mr. C. G. Barrett, writing from Norwich says : — 

 " On August 10th, (1871), I found one larva mining a shoot of the 

 ragwort (S. aquaticus) and sent it at once to Mr. Buckler. A fortnight'" 

 ^ater,. I found several larvae and a few pupae, from which the moths 

 began to emerge on August 20th." The perfect insect (of the first 

 brood) appears in the latter part of June, and again (second brood) in 

 August and September " (" Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," 

 Vol. VIII., pp. 153-154). Mr. Barrett from Pembroke, August, 1880, 

 writes : — " Platyptilia isodactylus is again out, but smaller of course, 

 from its rapid feeding up in hot weather. If it were desirable, or I 

 could spare the time, it would be easy to take hundreds " (," Entomo- 

 logist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. XVII., p. 91). Mr. Birchall writes 

 of, the appearance of the species in Ireland :— " It occurs abundantly 

 in July and August." "The date of the last capture was August 

 10th" (" Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. IV., p. 39). Mr. 

 Eustace R. Bankes in the " Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," Vol. 

 XXV., p. 455, writes:—" On August 30th last, I had the pleasure of 

 taking three specimens — two much worn, but one in magnificent con- 

 dition— of this uncommon "plume" moth in a water-meadow in the 

 neighbourhood of Wareham (Dorset). The only previous record of 

 its occurrence in the county is as follows: — " Taken by J. E. Dale, on 

 June 1 8th, 1836." This latter therefore is another record of the early 

 brood. The Rev. O. P. Cambridge records : — " Very rare in the 

 neighbourhood of Wareham " {in litt.). 



Habitat — This is purely a marsh species. In Stainton's 'Manual,' 

 p. 440, we find only two localities, Teignmouth and Orkney. Of these 

 - *Xhere is some little error as to the date here, 



