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The rather stout caterpillar is grey with darker lines and V-shaped marks along the middle of the back, and dark-edged pale lines on the sides; two erect whitish points on ring 12. It feeds on heather (Calluna), broom (Sarothamnus scoparius), and needle furze or petty-whin (Genista anglica), but it may be reared on knot grass. September to June, sometimes later.
The moth is out in July and August, and frequents heaths, moor, and mountain, in Scotland from Clydesdale (including Bute and Arran) to Aberdeen and Ross, and the Isle of Lewis. A male specimen has been recorded from Ireland (Dowros Head, co. Donegal, 1898). It may be found resting upon rocks, stone walls, etc.; where these have suitable holes, crannies, or projections they are selected as hiding places. Sometimes the moth has been noted on the wing during the day, but at night it flies freely, and will then visit light.
Black Mountain Moth (Psodos coracina).
The smoky-grey species represented on Plate [139], Figs. 6 ♂ 7 ♀, has two black lines on the fore wings; these are often edged with whitish, and the space between them blackish; the submarginal line is whitish, and the discal spot is black; the hind wings have a black central spot and two pale lines or bands. The female is rather smaller and much paler. In both sexes the central band of the fore wings is generally narrowed below the middle, and sometimes it is completely divided at this point.
As regards the British Isles, this species is known only to occur in the Highlands of Scotland. It is a day flyer, and very fond of sunshine, but its favourite haunts are situated at elevations of from 2000 to 4000 feet.
Note.—Newman (British Moths, p. 68) figures this species as The Dusky Carpet (Mniophila cineraria), and the insect, then known by the latter name, is figured as Psodos trepidaria, a synonym of the present species. In referring to this transposition of names, it may be well to add that M. cineraria, catalogued as British by Doubleday, and stated by Stainton (Manual ii., p. 31) to have once occurred at Tenby, South Wales, can only be regarded as an "accidental." The specimen, which is in the Natural History Museum, at South Kensington, appears to be Tephronia sepiaria, Hufnagel, which is the cineraria of Hübner.
A moth, supposed to be a specimen of Dasydia tenebraria, Esper = torvaria, Hübner, was reported as taken in Ireland "many years" before 1843, but at the present time that specimen, apparently, does not exist, and there is no exact description of it extant.