The caterpillar of the Angle-shades is either grass-green in colour or light brown, powdered thickly with tiny white dots, and with a pale white line running down the middle of its back. It feeds on nettle, chickweed, primrose, mullein, and other low plants, and when it is fully grown makes a light cocoon just beneath the surface of the ground, in which it turns to a shiny reddish-brown chrysalis. PLATE XLVII THE SILVER Y (3) This is a very common moth indeed, and if you walk through a field of clover or lucerne in August or the early part of September, you may sometimes kick it out of the herbage at nearly every step that you take, until Silver Y moths are buzzing about you almost like bees. You can easily recognise it, for in the middle of each of its front wings it has a mark shaped something like the letter Y, and looking just as if it were made of polished silver. And you may also see the moth flying over flowers in the evening, while after dark it often comes into a lighted room. Indeed, one really wonders whether Silver Y moths ever go to sleep at all! The caterpillar of this moth is shaped very much like that of the burnished brass, and walks in just the same curious way. It is rather hairy, and is bright apple-green in colour, with six narrow white lines running along its back, and a yellow stripe on either side. It feeds on all kinds of garden herbs and low plants, and when it is fully fed it spins a white cocoon among the leaves, and turns into a shiny black chrysalis, from which the moth generally hatches out about three weeks later. PLATE XLVIII THE BEAUTIFUL YELLOW UNDERWING (1) This is really a most lovely little moth. It is something like a very, very small “large yellow underwing.” But instead of having the front wings plain light or dark brown, with hardly any markings at all, it has them bright red-brown with pure white spots and wavy lines, while the hind-wings are of the brightest possible yellow, with a broad edging of glossy black. If you want to see this very pretty insect, you can easily do so. All that you have to do is to ramble over a heathy common on a hot, sunny day in May or June, and you are sure, before long, to notice a Beautiful Yellow Underwing flying about over the heather. It hardly looks like a moth. It looks more like a brightly-coloured little bee. And it flies so quickly that you will have some little difficulty in catching it. The caterpillar of this moth feeds on heather and bilberry, and is bright green in colour, with five white lines running along its body. Down its back is a line made up of short white streaks. Below this, on each side, is another line, made up of white spots. And lower down still is a third line, also made up of spots, which run up and down in a zigzag. Look for this caterpillar in August. [Illustration: PLATE XLVIII 1. Beautiful Yellow Underwing 2. Orange Underwing 3. Burnished Brass] PLATE XLVIII THE ORANGE UNDERWING (2)