If you were to ask me why this moth should be called the “Old Lady,” I am not quite sure that I could tell you. But I think the reason must be that old ladies mostly dress in dark grey, or dark brown, or black, which are just the colours of the wings of the moth. It is quite a common insect in most parts of the country, and yet one very seldom sees it; for it always hides away during the daytime in some dark nook or cranny, where it is not very easily found. Perhaps the best place to look for it is inside a boat-house, or a summer-house, or a shed, about the end of July or during the first or second week in August. And if you find it, and frighten it away, it will very often come back again in a short time to exactly the same spot. The caterpillar of this moth feeds on the leaves of various fruit trees, on which you may find it in May. It has a smooth, velvety body of a dingy brown colour, with a number of paler and darker markings, and on the back is a row of eight dark spots shaped just like lozenges. [Illustration: PLATE XLVII 1. Pink-barred Sallow 2. Angle-shades 3. Silver Y] PLATE XLVII THE PINK-BARRED SALLOW (1) This is one of the most beautiful of all our British moths, for its front wings are of the most lovely orange-yellow, with a broad purple-pink band running across them, and several blotches and spots of the same colour on each side of it, while the hind-wings are light yellow, with a darker border. It comes out in September and October, and the best way to find it is to search on ivy blossoms on a warm, still evening, by the help of a bull’s-eye lantern. A great many moths are very fond of these blossoms, and sometimes you may see them feasting on the nectar in hundreds, or even in thousands, with their little eyes gleaming like balls of coloured fire in the light of the lantern. And just here and there among them you are almost sure to notice a Pink-barred Sallow. The caterpillar of this moth feeds first of all upon the catkins of sallow bushes. But when they begin to die off it goes down to the ground, and feeds upon the leaves of plantains and other low plants instead. In colour it is reddish-brown, with a number of brown, red, yellow, and white dots all over its body. PLATE XLVII THE ANGLE-SHADES (2) This is a very common moth indeed, but a very difficult one to see. For when it is at rest it always folds its yellowish-brown and olive-green wings closely round its body, and looks so like a shrivelled piece of dead leaf that it is very hard indeed to believe that it is really a moth. It is double-brooded, coming out first in May, and then again in September and October. But it always seems much more plentiful in the autumn than in the spring, and you can generally find it in numbers by looking on the blossoms of ivy on a warm evening. And you will notice that the hairs on the “thorax,” or middle part of its body, are so long that they form a kind of ruff all round its neck.