The stoutish caterpillar (Plate 76, Fig. 2) is green with reddish marks along the back; a white line low down along the sides is edged below with purplish red on the first three rings; the last ring, and the claspers, tinged with purplish red. It feeds {203} at night on bramble and raspberry, in August and September, occasionally earlier or later. In the daytime it rests on the underside of a leaf. When full grown it forms a cocoon just under the surface of the soil, or among rubbish (in the cage), and therein changes to a dark reddish-brown chrysalis (Plate 76, Fig. 2a). The moth is out in June, sometimes in late May, and occasionally there seems to be a few individuals about in August. The species is a denizen of the woodlands, and is generally to be found in the more open parts of woods where its food plants are well established. It is widely distributed over England and Wales, but most frequent in the south of the former country. In Scotland, it is local in Roxburghshire and Wigtownshire; and it occurs in many parts of Ireland. The range abroad extends to Amurland and Japan. THE PURPLE BAR (_Mesoleuca ocellata_). The whitish fore wings of this species (Plate 82, Fig. 12) are often tinged with pale ochreous brown on the lower two-thirds of the outer marginal area, and this tint sometimes invades the central portion of the bluish-black central band. Rarely the ground colour is almost entirely white, and the central band is very slender (ab. _coarctata_, Prout), and perhaps rather more frequently the band is completely severed below the middle. The caterpillar, which feeds at night on bedstraw (_Galium mollugo_ and _G. verum_), is pale ochreous brown, or pale pinkish brown, netted with darker brown; on the back are a reddish ochreous central line, and some reddish edged pale V-marks: June and July, and sometimes again in the autumn. The moth is out in June and early July, occasionally in late May in some southern localities. Individuals of a second emergence sometimes appear in August and September. It {204} rests by day on tree-trunks or in hedges, and flies at night. Widely distributed over the British Isles, but, except perhaps in the highlands of Scotland, not very common. BLUE-BORDERED CARPET (_Mesoleuca bicolorata_). The more usual form of this pretty little species is shown on Plate 82, Figs. 3 and 6. In the type the central band is only represented by a spot on the front margin of the fore wings; in ab._parvula_, Retz = _rubiginata_, Hubner, there is also a portion of the band showing on the inner margin. Ab. _plumbata_, Curtis, from Scotland has the central band entire and the ground colour inclining to creamy white. In ab. _fumosa_, Prout, the usual white parts of the wing are smoky or dark lead colour (Fig. 9). Barrett mentions a form with all the wings smoothly smoky black; markings of the fore wings olive brown, margined with slender stripes of smoky white.