The moth, which is out in July and August, is often common in gardens and orchards where bush fruit is grown, pretty well throughout the United Kingdom. It appears to occur only rarely in Ireland.
Abroad, the range extends to Amurland, and a form is found in Labrador.
Rannoch Looper (Thamnonoma brunneata).
All the wings are of a rusty ochreous colour, sometimes, chiefly in the male, inclining to a purplish tint on the fore wings; the brownish cross lines are usually most distinct in the female, which sex Hübner figured as pinetaria. (Plate [143], Figs. 4 ♂, 5 ♀.)
The caterpillar is reddish brown, with a black-edged dark-green irregular line along the middle of the back; a white line on each side of the central one, and following this are a dark-brown shade-like stripe and some brownish-green lines; the line along the spiracles is whitish, inclining to yellow. In general appearance it closely resembles a twig of bilberry (Vaccinium), upon the foliage of which plant the caterpillar feeds in the spring.
The moth is out in June and July, but in the British Isles it is only to be obtained in Perthshire and northwards in Scotland. Black-wood, Loch Rannoch, is the original, and a now well-known, locality for this species, which Curtis in 1828 figured as Speranza sylvaria.
The range abroad extends to Amurland and Japan, and to North America.
Brown Silver-line (Lozogramma (Phasiane) petraria).
The two cross lines on the pale-brown, sometimes pinkish, fore wings, are edged with whitish, but this is most distinct on