Yellow or ochreous is the typical coloration, but the most frequent form of this common species in Britain is ab. _ferruginea_, Hubn., which is ochreous tinged with rust colour. Sometimes, the fore wings are more or less suffused with blackish, and with the markings black, such specimens are referable to _macilenta_ as figured by Hubner, Noct., Fig. 688. The more usual form is shown on Plate 7, Figs. 9, 10. At the time it is freshly laid, the egg (Plate 5, Fig. 3a) is yellowish, but changes in about a week to purplish with a more or less distinct pearly sheen. The caterpillar is brown inclining to yellowish, the head is reddish, and the plate on first ring blackish; there are three pale lines along the back, the central one more or less interrupted by dusky V-shaped marks, the others with an interrupted edging above; the stripe along the region of the blackish spiracles is yellowish grey. It lives on wych-elm and ash, eating the flowers, seeds, and leaves, but has a decided preference for the first two. It may be beaten in May and early June, sometimes in numbers, from the seeds (Plate 5, Fig. 3). [Illustration] 2 Pl. 8. 1. CONFORMIST: _caterpillar_. 2. EARLY GREY: _caterpillar_. 3. RED SWORD-GRASS: _caterpillar_. [Illustration] 2 Pl. 9. 1, 2. FLOUNCED RUSTIC. 3-6. BEADED CHESTNUT. 7-9. BROWN-SPOT PINION. {15} The moth is out from late August well on into October, and is to be found, wherever its favourite trees are established, throughout the British Isles. THE FLOUNCED RUSTIC (_Amathes_ (_Orthosia_) _helvola_). On Plate 9 is shown a male specimen of the typical form (Fig. 1). In ab. _ochrea_, Tutt, the general colour of the fore wings is ochreous with a greenish tinge, and so it differs from the type, in which the ground colour is reddish. In another ochreous form the cross bands are of a purplish tint (ab. _punica_, Borkhausen), and in ab. _rufina_, Hubner, the bands are also purplish, but the ground colour is of a somewhat brighter red than in the type. Ab. _unicolor_, Tutt, is dull reddish with indistinct cross markings, and seems to be a modification of the almost unicolorous form of a bright red colour, ab. _rufa_, Tutt. (Fig. 2.) The full-grown caterpillar feeds, in April and May, on the foliage of the oak, the elm, and some other trees; also on sallow, hawthorn, and, according to Barrett, on bilberry and heather. In general colour it is brownish, often tinged with red, and more or less flecked with dark brown; a fine whitish line along the middle of the back is only clearly traceable on the front rings, but there is a very distinct white stripe along the region of the black spiracles. In an earlier stage it is green with three whitish lines on the back, and another on the sides.