The caterpillar is very variable in colour, but is generally green, and is marked with longitudinal wavy lines. On each side is a series of yellow blotches, forming a broken lateral stripe, and the body is covered with minute black bristle-bearing warts. It feeds in May on gooseberry and currant bushes, and changes to a chrysalis in a web between the leaves.
Family—Fidoniidæ
We now come to a family of moths peculiar for their habit of flying more or less by day. As is often the case with day-flying moths, these are mostly prettily marked, and are consequently often mistaken by the uninitiated for butterflies. Most of them are to be found on heaths, downs, and open fields; but one—the Bordered White—is met with only in fir woods.
The wings are not angulated, and the antennæ of the males are pectinated.
The larvæ are generally to be distinguished by a couple of little horns on one or more of the hindermost segments, and in most cases they pupate beneath the surface of the soil.
The Common Heath (Ematurga atomaria)
Of this family we shall select two examples, the first of which is the Common Heath, often so abundant on heaths and downs that they are disturbed at almost every footstep.
