This species (Plate [88], Fig. 1) is also known as sinuata, Hübner. The white fore wings have a blackish patch at the base and a blackish mark on the front margins beyond the middle; the former is separated into two parts by a pale reddish-brown band, and there is a reddish band, most distinct on the front area, beyond the black mark; in some specimens these bands are greyish.
The caterpillar is green, sometimes inclining to yellowish, with two black or purplish stripes, enclosing a broader pale yellow one, along the back; head, green, freckled with black. It feeds on the flowers of bedstraw (Galium mollugo, and G. verum), in July and August, or later in some seasons.
The moth is out in late June and in July, and occasionally may be disturbed from its food plant or the surrounding herbage. About dusk it is on the wing, and later is attracted by light. It seems to occur in most of the English counties from Kent to Cornwall; also in Berks., Oxon., Herts, and the eastern counties. Always local, and except in the east, where it is found in the Breck-sand area, most frequent in chalky localities. Barrett notes a specimen from Knowle, Warwickshire, and there are at
least two records from Scotland (Perthshire). In Ireland, Mr. W. F. de V. Kane took one example from a wall in co. Clare, and another has been recorded from Galway.
The range of the species abroad extends to Siberia and Amurland; and it is represented in Corea and Japan by A. yokohamæ, Butler.
The Shoulder Stripe (Anticlea badiata).
The ground colour of the fore wings is pale ochreous brown, inclining to whitish; there are three dark-edged black cross-lines, the first of them sharply bent below the front margin, the second is rather oblique, and the third is wavy and often not clearly defined towards the inner margin; the outer marginal area is broadly bordered with pale reddish brown or dark purplish brown, there is a black streak from the more or less indistinct, whitish submarginal line to the tips of the wings, and a white mark about the middle of the line; the ground colour is most in evidence on the central area of the wings, but even here it is frequently reduced to a slender band, or occasionally only a patch near the front margin of the wing. (Plate [88], Figs. 2-4.)
The caterpillar (Plate [89], Fig. 1) is green, inclining to yellow between the rings; the spiracles are black, and there is sometimes a pinkish brown or purplish stripe along their area. Varies in general colour, and also in marking. It feeds, at night, on wild rose, and may be beaten from the bushes from May to July. When full grown it forms an oval cocoon in the earth, and therein changes to a chrysalis (Plate [89], Fig. 1a), which is dark reddish brown, inclining to blackish on the thorax, wing-cases, and the front edges of the body rings.
The moth appears in March and April, and may be obtained from almost any hedgerow, where wild rose is plentiful, throughout the British Isles, except that it seems not to extend north of Moray in Scotland.