Very few specimens were taken in the fens between the year last mentioned and 1898, when the total secured by several collectors visiting the fens in June of that year amounted to something like fifty examples, all males. Two female specimens were captured in the Carlisle district, one in 1896, and the other in 1897. No male was noted in that locality until 1899, when a specimen was netted as it flew along a hedgeside at night, on May 20. Two other males have since been taken there, in much the same way. The life history of the species is little known. Hofmann describes the caterpillar as reddish brown with white dots, and a white line along the middle of the back; spiracles and head black. It feeds in the summer on low-growing plants in meadows, and hides in the daytime on the underside of a leaf. The range of the species abroad extends to Siberia and Amurland. THE BROWN RUSTIC (_Rusina tenebrosa_). Here, again, the female is smaller than the male, as will be seen on Plate 153, Figs. 4 [male], 5 [female]. Sometimes the general colour of the fore wings is of a blacker tint, and in such specimens the fine black cross lines are obscured. The caterpillar is dark cinnamon brown; three whitish lines on the back, the central one, most distinct on the front rings, is edged on each side with dark brown, and the shading of the outer lines is interrupted by oblique pale dashes; head, shining dark brown, almost blackish. It feeds on grasses, and many low-growing plants from August to May. (Plate 152, Fig. 4.) The moth flies in June and July, sometimes earlier. The species is generally distributed over nearly the whole of England, but more local in the north than in the south. It is found in North and South Wales. In Scotland it is locally abundant and widely distributed up to Ross, and occurs in the Hebrides. It is also widely spread in Ireland, and common in some parts. _Umbratica_, Goeze, is said to be an earlier name for this species, and will probably have to be adopted. [Illustration] Pl. 156. 1, 1a, 1b. HEBREW CHARACTER: _eggs, caterpillars and chrysalis_. 2, 2a. CLOUDED DRAB: _caterpillars and chrysalis_. 3. MOUSE MOTH: _caterpillar_. [Illustration] Pl. 157. 1-6. CLOUDED DRAB MOTH. 7, 8. LEAD-COLOURED DRAB MOTH. 9, 10. NORTHERN DRAB. {323} THE COPPER UNDERWING (_Amphipyra pyramidea_). The striking species shown on Plate 154, Figs. 1 to 3, varies somewhat in the tint of its brown-coloured fore wings, and in the greater or lesser amount of blackish shading on the central area; the latter is sometimes quite absent, and not infrequently the outer marginal area is pale ochreous brown. The hind wings, normally of a coppery colour, are occasionally paler, and sometimes of a reddish hue.