THE MOTTLED UMBER 75 



PLATE XXXIX 



THE MOTTLED UMBER (i, 2, and 3) 



Towards the end of October, and all through 

 the month of November, you may often find this 

 handsome moth resting on fences, or on the 

 trunks of trees. But although it is so brightly 

 coloured you may easily pass it by without see- 

 ing it, for it looks almost exactly like a piece 

 of dead and withered leaf. The male varies a 

 good deal in markings. Sometimes, for instance, 

 he has no dark streaks on his wings at all, but 

 is reddish-brown all over, sprinkled with very 

 tiny blackish dots. But the female is always 

 grub-like, with such very tiny wings that you 

 can hardly see them. You can tell her from 

 that of any other of the "winter moths" by the 

 two rows of large black spots which run all 

 down her yellowish-brown body. 



The caterpillars of this moth are very plentiful 

 indeed. In colour they are reddish-brown above, 

 with a broad yellow stripe on each side, and 

 greenish-yellow beneath. They feed upon the 

 leaves of hazel, oak, birch, sloe, and ever so 

 many other trees and bushes. And if you walk 

 through a wood in May or June, after a strong 

 wind has been blowing, you may often see 

 numbers of them swinging in the air, each sus- 

 pended from a twig or a leaf by a slender silken 

 thread. 



