| Pl. 24. |
| Puss Moth. |
| Pl. 25. |
| Puss Moth. |
| Egg, natural size and enlarged; caterpillars, chrysalis and cocoon. |
The caterpillars feed on beech, and also occasionally on birch, oak, hazel, and some fruit trees, and may be found from July to September.
The chrysalis, which is enclosed in a tightly woven cocoon
spun up between leaves, usually dead ones, is blackish brown with a violet bloom upon it.
The moths are on the wing in May and June in an early season, but not until June and July in a backward one. They may be sometimes found resting by day on the stems of small trees or even bushes. "In fact, anything," Mr. Holland says, "which stands upright in a beech wood will do, so that it is not too large." The blackish form of the moth is so like a knot on a stem that it is easily overlooked. There is sometimes a second emergence in August. Possibly those caterpillars found during the latter part of September in some favourable years are from eggs deposited by moths emerging in early August, and the offspring of May parents.
The species is widely distributed, but not often common, over the Midland, Southern, and Eastern Counties of England. It seems to flourish chiefly in beech woods, and is perhaps more frequent in parts of Berkshire, Bucks, and Oxfordshire, than elsewhere, but it is not uncommon in some seasons in the New Forest. It has been reported from Swansea in Wales, and once from Selby, Yorkshire. In Ireland it is exceedingly rare, and is not known to occur in Scotland. The range abroad extends through Central Europe, northward to Sweden, southward to Spain and Portugal, and eastward to Armenia, Ussuri, and Japan.