322 THE MOTHS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Note. — Newman (^British Moths, p. 68) figures this species 

 as The Dusky Carpet {Mniophila cifieraria), and the insect, 

 then known by the latter name, is figured as Psodos irepidaria, 

 a synonym of the present species. In referring to this 

 transposition of names, it may be well to add that M. dne?'aria, 

 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 Hiibner. 



A moth, supposed to be a specimen of Dasydia tenebraria, 

 Esper = torvaria, Hiibner, 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. 



Netted Mountain Moth {Fidonia carhonaria). 



The white Avings of this species (Plate 141, Figs, i J? 2 5) 

 are freckled with blackish and crossed by black stripes ; some- 

 times the freckling is so heavy that the white ground colour is 

 much obscured and only distinctly seen as edging to the cross 

 stripes. 



The caterpillar is dingy ochreous or whity brown marked 

 with wavy darker stripes. It feeds at night on birch and 

 sallow ; Vaccinium, Erica, bearberry {Arctostaphylos tiva-7irsi) 

 have also been mentioned as food plants. 



In April and May, the moth, which is to be found locally, 

 high up on the mountains of Scotland from Perthshire to Ross, 

 is on the wing, and flies in the sunshine. Writing of this 

 species at Rannoch in May (about 17th), 1905, Mr. E. A. 

 Cockayne remarks that the moths began to fly about noon. 



