Usually the fore wings of this moth appear to be brownish, or reddish brown on the basal half, and whitish, more or less suffused with greyish, or sometimes reddish brown, on the outer half; the hind wings are pale brownish, or greyish, lighter towards the base. Not infrequently the fore wings are greyish white with some brownish clouding between the two blackish cross lines. The caterpillar is variable in colour, but generally of some shade of brown, ranging from dark chocolate brown to {191} pale ochreous, covered with soft hair; the pencils of long hairs on the first ring, and the tufts of hairs on rings four, five, and eleven, may be red, greyish, or blackish; the broken stripe along the back is greyish, and the stripe low down on each side may be red, brown, or greyish. It feeds in June and July, and as a second generation in September, on the foliage of beech, birch, hazel, hornbeam, etc.: bushes growing in exposed positions such as a hedge bank or hill side are chiefly fancied. The moth flies in May and June, and again in August and September. It probably occurs in most of the English counties, but is most frequent in Berkshire, Bucks, and Devon. Not uncommon in Clydesdale, but more plentiful in Aberdeenshire, and is also obtained in Perthshire, and in other parts of Scotland. Widely distributed in Ireland. The moth is shown on Plate 100, Fig. 2, and the early stages on Plate 101, Figs. 3, 3a, 3b. THE MILLER (_Acronycta leporina_). In its typical form the wings are quite white with but little in the way of marking. Most, if not all, the specimens occurring in Britain are the more or less greyish suffused and more marked, variety known as _bradyporina_, Treits. (Plate 100, Figs. 3 [male], 4 [female].) Sometimes the outer margins of the fore wings, beyond the second cross line, are shaded or dusted with blackish (var. _semivirga_, Tutt). In the Liverpool district a form is occasionally obtained in which the fore wings are darkly suffused, and the thorax is black (var. _melanocephala_, Mansbridge). A specimen with black fore wings and white fringes has been bred from a caterpillar found in Essex (_Entomologist_, xxxviii., 289, and xxxix., 97).