About one hundred and sixty years ago Wilkes figured this species as "The Mottled Beauty," but Harris in 1778 gave it its present English name. On Plate 82 are shown two examples of the typical form (Figs. 7, 8), also two specimens of the small form (Figs. 10, 11), var. _subhastata_, Nolcken (= _hastulata_, Hubner); the latter form in Britain occurs chiefly in Sutherlandshire and the Isle of Lewis. As regards variation there is, in the small form, a tendency to an increase of black; whilst in the typical form there is a considerable reduction of the black marking--so much so occasionally that of the central black band only a few dots remain around the discal spot, and perhaps a speck or two below it, and a dot or two on the inner margin (ab. _demolita_, Prout). The rather stumpy caterpillar is dark olive-green, inclining to blackish, and somewhat shiny; the skin along the sides puckered and marked with ochreous; a black line along the middle of the back; head, black and glossy. It feeds, in July and August, later in the north, on birch, _Vaccinium_, chiefly {202} _uliginosum_, and sweet gale (_Myrica_). It spins together the leaves at the tips of the twigs, and so forms a cocoon-like habitation. The moth is out in May and June, and even July in the north. It flies in the afternoon sunshine around and over birch trees, and occasionally alights on the leaves. It has been taken in Kent, and more frequently in Essex and Suffolk, but it is more plentiful in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and from Surrey to Dorsetshire and Wiltshire; also in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and on high ground in North Wales, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire; its range extending through Cheshire and Lancashire to Cumberland and Northumberland, but only odd specimens have been reported from the last-named county and from Durham. The egg and the caterpillar are shown on Plate 79, Figs. 1 and 1a. It is widely distributed, and often common in places, throughout Scotland. In Ireland it is local, but has occurred plentifully in some of its haunts in that country; Kane states that var. _subhastata_ has not been noted. The range abroad spreads to Amurland, China, Iceland, Labrador, and North America. BEAUTIFUL CARPET (_Mesoleuca albicillata_). The English name of this species (Plate 82, Fig. 13) is exceedingly appropriate; few of our native moths exhibit such a pleasing combination of colour and marking. It varies but very little in a general way, but a specimen taken in York some years ago has the fore wings dark leaden grey instead of creamy white (ab. _suffusa_, Carrington), and very rarely the ground colour inclines to yellow.