The long caterpillar is variable in general colour, brown, mottled with greyish, pale grey, reddish brown, or yellowish green; all have darker or whitish lines along the back, and whitish or pinkish triangles or X-marks. It feeds, in May and June (earlier in some localities, and later in others), on bilberry, crowberry, and sallow; it may also be reared on willow.

2 Pl. 64.
1.Dark Umber: caterpillar.
2.Netted Carpet: caterpillar.

2 Pl. 65.
1, 2.The Spinach. 3-5.Barred Straw.6, 7.Barred Yellow.
8-10.Broken-barred Carpet.

The moth is out in July and August, and may be found on the leaves and among the sprays of Vaccinium myrtillus growing in woodlands (especially the more ancient), bogs, and moorlands.

The species is widely spread, and generally abundant in suitable districts, over the greater part of the British Isles; but it seems to be more or less casual in England south of the Midlands, although its range runs through Gloucestershire and Somerset into Devon. In the last-named county it sometimes swarms at Martinhoe, on the edge of Exmoor.

The distribution abroad includes Eastern Siberia, Amurland, Labrador, and North America.

The Spinach (Lygris associata).