An older English name for this species (Plate [82], Figs. 4, 5) is "The Short Cloak Carpet," Harris (1782), but that given to it by Haworth is here adopted. It is also the biangulata of Haworth, Stephens, and others.
As will be observed on referring to the figures, the outer edge of the blackish central band of the fore wings is twice angled just above the middle; the basal area and the outer marginal border are dark greyish brown, more or less tinged with olive; the whitish ground colour only shows distinctly as a strip immediately beyond the central band, and from this an irregular streak runs to the tips of the wings; some white wavy cross-lines through the outer border are often obscure.
The stoutish caterpillar is yellowish brown, or sometimes reddish brown; there is a series of blackish or dark-brown spots along the back, and a stripe of dusky freckles along each side; lower down are two slender wavy lines enclosing a dusky stripe; head, yellowish-brown mottled with darker brown. It feeds, at night, on chickweed and other kinds of Stellaria, in
August and September. One of the mouse-ear chickweeds (Cerastium glomeratum) has also been mentioned as a food plant, and for rearing the caterpillars this would perhaps be useful, as common chickweed, unless in a growing state, is difficult to keep in a suitable condition for larval requirements.
The moth, which is partial to a hedgerow as a hiding-place, is out in June and July, and may be sometimes reared as a second generation in September.
The species is somewhat local, but it is not scarce in many parts of England; its range does not appear to extend northwards beyond Worcestershire on the western side, although it has been recorded from North Wales; on the eastern side it is found up to Norfolk.
The Argent and Sable (Eulype hastata).
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, Hübner); 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
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.